Audrey Fullerton-Samora of Sacramento, great niece of William and Grace McCarthy, donated the William M. McCarthy Photograph Collection to the California State Archives in 1996
Date Created and/or Issued
9/30/1934
Publication Information
California State Archives, a division of the California Secretary of State's Office
Caption: "This Monument Marks the Spot Where East and West Union Pacific R.R. Was Joined in Completion. Ames Monument, Near Summit Between Cheyenne & Larmie [sic]. Sept. 30, 1934." Grace McCarthy stands in front of the large four-sided pyramid of the Ames Monument in this photograph. The monument, designed by Henry Hobson Richardson, does not mark the spot where the transcontinental railroad was joined (that occurred at Promontory Summit in Utah). Instead, the Ames Monument commemorates brothers Oakes and Oliver Ames, financiers of the Union Pacific Railroad, builder of the eastern portion of the transcontinental railroad line. At the time the pyramid was constructed in 1882, it stood at the highest point in elevation attained by the transcontinental railroad (8,247 feet).
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