Guidebook of the Western United States. 



PART B. THE OVERLAND ROUTE, WITH A SIDE TRIP TO 



YELLOWSTONE PARK. 



By Willis T. Lee, Ralph W. Stojse, Hoyt S. Gale, and otliers. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The westbound traveler over the Union Pacific Railroad will view 

 in the course of his journey some of the most conspicuous geographic 

 features of the North American Continent. These are showai m the 

 accompanying illustration (PL I). The east end of the route lies in 

 the broad; well-watered Mississippi Valley, where an abundance of 

 rainfall is indicated by the numerous branchmg streams. On leaving 

 Omaha the traveler crosses the Great Plains, which rise gradually to 

 the west and become progressively drier, merging into the relatively 

 barren region formerly called the Great American Desert. This 

 change in character is not very apparent to the traveler, because the 

 railroad foUows a vaUey whose bottom lands m the arid part of the 

 Great Plains are irrigated and do not differ in general appearance 

 from those farther east, where the rainfall supplies sufficient moisture 

 for growing crops. On both sides of this valley in western Nebraska 

 the land is utilized for grazing and for dry farming. The cultivation 

 of the Great Plains by dry farming is rapidly spreading as new meth- 

 ods become more widely understood, and the region can no longer be 

 called a desert. In eastern Wyoming the route is in a belt of grazing 

 countrj^. 



West of the Great Plains lies a general mountainous country, known 

 as the CordiUeran region, which extends westward to the Pacific 

 coast. At Granite Canyon, Wyo., the railroad reaches the eastern 

 margin of the CordiUeran region, marked by a spur of the soutliern 

 Rocky Mountains — the Laramie Range — and thence westward it 

 winds around detached mountain groups and through the intervening 

 basins. The traveler may not reaUze that he is in a mountainous 

 region, for most of the lofty mountains of southern Wyoming stand 

 at considera]>le distances from the railroad. The mountainous part 

 of the route is not well populated. Many of the stations are little 

 more than section houses, and some consist only of a post on which 

 is painted the name, to indicate the location of a sidetrack. This 



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