Oakes and Oliver Ames Monument -- near Buford WY
N 41° 07.869 W 105° 23.878
13T E 466596 N 4553392
The Oakes and Oliver Ames Monument, a landmark on the Lincoln Highway near Buford WY
Waymark Code: WMXRZN
Location: Wyoming, United States
Date Posted: 02/22/2018
Views: 2
The Oakes and Oliver Ames Monument, a landmark on the Lincoln Highway near Buford WY, lies just a short distance off the route of the old Lincoln Highway (and the modern I-80) along Monument Road near Buford WY.
This monument was previously located ON the route of the Union Pacific as it made its way over Sherman Hill, but when the UP rerouted its tracks a bit to the south, the monument was left at this historical point, the summit of Sherman Hill on the UPRR.
In the 19-teens the Lincoln Highway was routed over Sherman Hill, just a bit to the north of the monument. Nevertheless, the monument was visible from the highway, and so it was a tourist draw for those motoring by then, and now.
In 1992 the Ames Monument was added to the US National Register of Historic Places. From the Wyoming State Office of Historical Preservation: (
visit link)
"National Register of Historic Places
Ames Monument
Albany County
Date Added to Register
Monday, July 24, 1972
Smithsonian Number
48AB97
The Ames Monument is located about twenty miles east of Laramie at a place which was, prior to the relocation of the railroad about three miles south, the highest point (8,247 feet) on the route of the Union Pacific, the first transcontinental railroad to be built in America. When completed in 1882, the Ames Monument stood about three hundred feet south of the Union Pacific tracks and on a knoll which, being 32 feet higher than the tracks to begin with, caused the apex of the Monument to rise 92 feet higher than the railroad tracks. The monument, a memorial to the Ames Brothers of Massachusetts, was designed by the prominent American architect, H. H. Richardson, and built by Norcross Brothers of Worchester, Massachusetts. It was constructed of granite rock native to the area, the light-colored granite being quarried from a jutting pile of rocks one half mile to the west of the monument and skidded by horse and derrick to the construction site. The monument is geometrical, four-sided pyramid, sixty feet square at the base and sixty feet high. “Random ashlar” is the appropriate designation for the type of construction employed in the Ames Monument. “Ashlar” refers to the rough-hewn granite boulders by which the monument was constructed, while “random” refers to the coursing or jointing of the irregular-sized granite blocks in the process of construction. The Ames Monument was erected under the authority of a resolution adopted by the stockholders of the Union Pacific Railroad Company at a meeting held in Boston on March 10, 1875 in memory of Oakes Ames in recognition of his services in the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad."