Union Pacific Railroad Museum reopened May 12, 2012

"Iowa rail museum goes for immersion" by Jay Jones, © Chicago Tribune, May 21, 2012. (Travel Article)

"COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — With its just-opened million-dollar makeover, the Union Pacific Railroad Museum [Free Admission, Open Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m. - 4 p.m., Closed Sunday-Monday, 200 Pearl Street, Council Bluffs, Iowa, (712) 329-8307] beckons visitors of all ages to downtown Council Bluffs ... reopened May 12. ... the Transcontinental Railroad construction ... sprang from a chance meeting between two men, one of them Abraham Lincoln, in Council Bluffs. Lincoln was in the western Iowa city to deliver a speech on his abolitionist views in 1859, a year before being elected president, when he met an Army general named Grenville Dodge, an advocate for moving America westward by rail. ... five routes were proposed for a rail line venturing west. One originating in the Omaha area was, ironically, not among them. ... This was the route suggested to Lincoln by Grenville Dodge, and this was the route eventually chosen by the president ... Dodge became the Union Pacific's chief construction engineer." [More]

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