Wyoming Genealogy

Like all railroad towns, Evanston has labored under the disadvantage of a changing population, but she is indebted to the Union Pacific for many of her most valued citizens, as well as for her existence. Division Superintendent O. H. Earl was succeeded by A. A. Egbert, and he, in i88o, by E. B. Dodderidge. Mr. Dodderidge soon came to be known as one of the best operating experts in the country. For seven years he was vice president and general manager of the Missouri Pacfiic lines, and is now living in retirement in Chicago.1 With Mr. Dodderidge was associated Joseph…

A description of the extent of Green River County, as recorded in the “Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah,” reads as follows : “All that portion of the territory bounded north by Oregon, east by the territorial line, south by the parallel forming the southern line of Davis County, and west by Weber and Davis Counties, is hereby called Green River County, and is attached to Great Salt Lake County for election, revenue and judicial purposes.” The Act further states that the “sheriff of Salt Lake County is hereby authorized to organize Green River County whenever…

Who were the first settlers in Uinta County? Where did they come from and when did they get here, the real old timers? It is not easy to answer these questions. Many a late arrival indulges the pardonable illusion that he is one of the original pioneers because this region was never inhabited in any practical, efficient way until he rose above our horizon. But the early history of Uinta County goes much farther back than that. Fortunately that early history has been written in the rocks, principally in those of the Bridger formation. Beside this story has a human…

Soon after the completion of the railroad it was decided to make Evanston the end of the division, and work was begun on a substantial roundhouse and machine shops made of stone. Bishop Sharp of the Mormon Church had the contract and employed about one hundred fifty men in the construction. It was completed the Fourth of July, 1871, and engines and men moved in from Wasatch to the accompaniment of shrieking whistles and cheers from the assembled crowd. A town picnic was held across the river, in which all of the community joined. The speech of the day was…

A firm by the name of Ellis and Fairbanks had the contract to supply ties for the railroad company. A large force of men was employed to cut down and trim trees in the mountains, some forty miles above Evanston, place them on the bosom of Bear River and direct their course down to the dam opposite the mill. In 1870 Jesse L. Atkinson, who had been engaged in getting out poles for the railroad company at Piedmont, bought out Fairbanks and the Evanston Lumber Company was formed. There were changes in the personnel of his partners, but from the…

In 1848 a young Missourian by the name of Alexander Majors, who had been hauling freight on the Santa I* a trail, became so impressed with the future of the industry that he determined to go into it on a larger scale. W. H. Russell and Thomas Waddell, men who had also had some experience on the southern route, became his partners, and the company began business under the firm name of Russell, Majors & Waddell. The result was the organization of the biggest freighting company that the world has ever seen. In the zenith of its prosperity it employed…