, 1885 The original of the Utah Northern Railroad (later named Utah & Northern Railway) was conceived and built by the Mormons. It was a
narrow gauge spur off the
Union Pacific portion of the
transcontinental railroad. The labor for this railroad was largely volunteer Mormon labor as the intent of the railroad was to serve the Mormon communities in the
Cache Valley that had been settled almost entirely by the Mormons. It was a case of Mormons forming a company and building their own railroad because existing railroad companies showed no interest in building such a railroad. The northern half of the Cache Valley is in Idaho and, due to claims and disputes by the
Shoshone and
Bannock Indians, was not settled by the Mormons until after the
Bear River Massacre and subsequent
Fort Bridger Treaty of 1868 that forced the Shoshone and Bannock onto reservations. The original Mormon plan for the Utah Northern was to build a railroad to the communities in the Cache Valley and about into Idaho to
Soda Springs, Idaho, that lies in a valley beyond called the Bear River Valley. This was by dictate of Brigham Young as he owned land in Soda Springs and believed that the Bear River Valley had potential for further Mormon settlement. The Mormons also believed they could break the monopoly that the anti-Mormon town of
Corinne, Utah, had on the wagon freight business on the
Montana Trail by extending the railroad into Idaho. There were tentative plans to eventually extend the Utah Northern to Montana. The road was constructed northward from the Union Pacific line at Ogden commencing construction on August 24, 1871. In three years, the largely volunteer railroad company had built of road. It reached
Franklin, Idaho, across the Idaho border, in May 1874 where construction was halted. Investors had become hesitant after the
panic of 1873 and the railroad was now moving into the northern half of the Cache Valley where there were fewer Mormon volunteers due to this area only recently having been relinquished by the Bannock and Shoshone. Poor decisions by the planners and the lack of business from the frugal residents of the
Cache Valley led to the bankruptcy and foreclosure sale of the Utah Northern only a few years later in 1878. Robber baron
Jay Gould transformed the Utah Northern. He and
Union Pacific acquired the Utah Northern Railroad, changing the name to the Utah & Northern Railway and infused the railroad with capital. Big business knew that an electrical age was coming and that the demand for copper products was putting pressure on copper prices. They knew that there were rich copper deposits at the mines near
Butte, Montana. Union Pacific quickly resumed construction on the Utah & Northern Railway after purchase in April 1878. Jay Gould invested personal money to get construction started just beyond Franklin in the fall of 1877. In the second year, they added another of track and crossed the
continental divide at the Idaho/Montana border. After three and a half years of construction, before the close of 1881, they completed the additional of road to Butte, Montana. Butte became the largest copper producing city in the world and Butte's population, by some estimates, grew to nearly 100,000. This made Butte, with its "
Copper Kings," the second largest city in the West with more influence than Salt Lake City, Denver, Sacramento, Seattle, or Portland. Only San Francisco remained larger and more important. Butte, with its large-scale mining and smelting operations, was dubbed the Pittsburg of the West. only six years after completing the line to Butte. The railroad operated successfully for several years and finally became a branch of the Union Pacific Railroad. ==See also==