Rawlins, WY

Carbon County, Wyoming — where Rawlins is located — owes much of its early history to Union Pacific. The railroad gave names to places as it laid its tracks westward and over the Rocky Mountains to build the transcontinental railroad.

Andrew J. Russell stereographic image, "Machine Shops at Rawlins Springs, Wyoming, 1869." Plate No. 147.

Andrew J. Russell stereographic image, "Roundhouse, Rawlins Springs, Wyoming, c1868." Plate No. 148.

Employees dig out switch buried in snow for incoming rotary snow plow in Rawlins, Wyoming, during the 1949 blizzard that blocked much of Union Pacific's freight and passenger service.

A.J. Russell's 19th century photographic images, contained in stereo card format, showing machine shops at Rawling Springs, Wyoming, 1869. Plate 149.

Rawlins was among those places. In 1867, Civil War Gen. John Aaron Rawlins was put in charge of protecting the crew surveying the route. According to the history of Rawlins, the general asked for a drink of good, cold water. His men explored the countryside and came upon a spring. When they brought the water back to him, Rawlins declared that it was the most refreshing drink he had ever tasted, and reportedly exclaimed, "If anything is ever named after me, I hope it will be a spring of water."

Gen. Grenville Dodge, Union Pacific's chief engineer, named the water source Rawlins Springs, and the community that formed around it bore the same name. The following year, on Aug. 8, 1868, Union Pacific came through Rawlins Springs on its way west. It became a distribution and supply point for extensive oil and gas fields, sheep and cattle ranches, coal mines and quarries. The name eventually was shortened to Rawlins. The town was incorporated in 1886 and designated the seat of Carbon County.

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