Oliver served as president of the Union Pacific Railroad from 1866 to 1871,[4] while Oakes, a U.S. representative from Massachusetts, asserted near-total control of its construction.

The Ames Monument is located about 20 miles (32 km) east of Laramie, Wyoming, on a wind-blown, treeless summit south of Interstate 80 at the Vedauwoo exit.

The audacity of building a transcontinental railroad in the 1860s was "today's equivalent of the mission to Mars: Big, expensive and impossible," wrote University of Wyoming historian Phil Roberts.

[5] President Abraham Lincoln reportedly told Oakes Ames that if he could get the transcontinental railroad built, he would be "the most remembered man of the century.

"[5] Lincoln personally recruited Oakes after progress by and financial support for Credit Mobilier of America, the construction company charged with building the railroad, ground to a halt.

[11] The company supplied the government with shovels during the Civil War, for excavating the Panama Canal, for mining Pennsylvania coal fields, and for digging the New York City Subway.

[7] In 1875, the Union Pacific Railroad board of directors voted to erect the grand Ames Monument, in part to burnish the company's tarnished reputation.

[4] The Norcross Brothers of Worcester, Massachusetts, built the monument, employing some 85 workers who lived on site, "where reportedly no liquor or gambling was allowed.

[1] President Rutherford B. Hayes underscored the importance of the transcontinental railroad and thereby the Ames brothers by attending the monument's dedication ceremony.

[5] However, when completed in 1882, the Ames Monument was visited by many persons who were allowed to momentarily leave their trains in order to view the monolithic curiosity.

The Union Pacific Railroad Company contested the purchase, and eventually obtained a special deed to the property in 1889, both frustrating Murphy and bankrupting him through legal proceedings.

[citation needed] The small town of Sherman arose at the site north of the tracks where trains stopped to change engines on their transcontinental journey.