One hundred fifty years ago, in August 1868, the Union Pacific Railroad’s tracks in Wyoming extended almost seven hundred miles west from Omaha, Nebraska. End of track was now thirty miles beyond the new bridge over the North Platte River near Fort Fred Steele. The nearby hell on wheels town of Benton turned out to be among the worst ever erected. Because of a lack of potable water, it was one of the shortest-lived.
Hell on Wheels
Benton, Wyoming
In late July, General Grenville M. Dodge, UP’s chief engineer, had convinced General Ulysses S. Grant, republican presidential candidate, to support him in his argument with Thomas “Doc” Durant, UP’s general manager, about where and how to lay the rails. Doc Durant did not cease sending conflicting instructions from his New York headquarters to Silas Seymour, his consulting engineer, who remained in Wyoming. Dodge and Seymour remained at odds until the completion of the first transcontinental railroad.
Chinese Workers
Central Pacific Railroad
Out west, the Central Pacific picked up its pace after completing the arduous task of crossing the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In western Nevada, the new town of Wadsworth sprang up to serve as the supply base for the work across the Nevada desert. Charles Crocker, construction supervisor for the CP, had to tackle a workforce problem in late July that had threatened to bring CP’s tracklaying to a halt. Rumors circulated that in the Nevada desert fifty-foot snakes and twenty-five-foot tall Indians would devour the Chinese workers. About a thousand “celestials” walked off the job before Crocker sent a delegation of Chinamen into the desert to meet real Indians and disprove the fake news.
Brigham Young
On August 14, 1868, General Dodge met with Lewis M. Clement, the Central Pacific’s chief engineer, in Salt Lake City, Utah. This was the first official meeting to discuss where the two railroads should join. The next day, Dodge met with Mormon leader Brigham Young and informed him the railroad would not pass through the capital city. Young was not pleased. On Sunday, August 16, Dodge and his wife and children, who had traveled west with him from end of track by stagecoach, sat beside Silas Seymour in the New Tabernacle and listened to Young berate the railroads. Mormon workers held grading contracts with both the Union Pacific and Central Pacific. Young and his church elders had expected a better outcome from their efforts. Young eventually took the position that the decision to route the railroad north of Great Salt Lake was God’s will.
In Bear Claws, The Iron Horse Chronicles, Book Two, Will Braddock witnesses the debauchery in Benton, lends a hand to Chinese workers on the Central Pacific Railroad, and meets Brigham Young in Salt Lake City.
Bear Claws won the Silver Will Rogers Medallion for Younger Readers in 2016, and the Wyoming State Historical Society awarded the book first place in fiction in 2016.
You can read the article by following this link: 
In the article I recommend several books for middle-grade students about the struggles for independence, including what I consider to be the best historical novel ever written for younger readers: Johnny Tremain.
It is a great thrill to announce that Golden Spike, The Iron Horse Chronicles, Book 3, has been nominated as a finalist for the 2018 Will Rogers Medallion Award in the category of Younger Readers. The winners will be announced at the annual banquet in Fort Worth, Texas, on Saturday, October 27, 2018. I am making plans to attend the ceremonies.
Eagle Talons, The Iron Horse Chronicles, Book 1, received the Bronze Will Rogers Medallion Award for Younger Readers in 2015, and Bear Claws, The Iron Horse Chronicles, Book 2, received the Silver Will Rogers Medallion Award for Younger Readers in 2016. Followers of this blog will recall that Bear Claws was also awarded first place in fiction in 2016 by the Wyoming State Historical Society.
I attended the 2018 Western Writers of America Convention in Billings, Montana, from June 20 through June 23. On the final day of the convention, I joined two bus-loads of fellow WWA members for a trip to Cody, Wyoming, to visit the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. A recent addition to the McCracken Research Library, located within the center, is the Western Writers Hall of Fame. I am not a member of the Hall of Fame, but as a part of the display, current WWA authors are included in the display. It was a great thrill to stand beside the entry for my trilogy, The Iron Horse Chronicles. Golden Spike, Book 3, is not yet included in the display. I will take steps to get that corrected.
Park Service will be planning major celebrations when the sesquicentennial celebration of the completion of the first transcontinental railroad takes place next year. Those who can make the trip to Promontory Summit, Utah, for the festivities will be well rewarded. Whether or not you do, you can read my trilogy, The Iron Horse Chronicles, about how this important historical event contributed to ending the traditional way of life of the nomadic Indians.
“Writing a Historical Trilogy” is the title of an article I wrote for the Spring 2018 issue of WriteRiders, the quarterly newsletter of the Nevada chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators. Link to the article (it’s on page 4 of the newsletter) 
On Saturday, April 21, 2018, I joined seven other members of Anthem Authors at the 2018 Sun City Anthem Spring Arts & Crafts Fair in Henderson, Nevada.
It was an honor to be included among the sixty authors who sold and autographed their books for the many patrons who visited the event. This was my fourth time to participate. It was obvious that the attendance was greater than any previous event. Thank you Henderson Libraries for organizing and managing this great showcase featuring all the talented authors who reside in the Vegas Valley.
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