Transcontinental Railroad [in words and images]

Oral History and Photograph Collections in the University of Utah Special Collections

Finding Oral History and Photograph Collections @ Marriott Library

● ArchivesWest

● Marriott Library Digital Library

● Complete list of oral history projects held by Marriott Library

Golden Spike Oral History Project

26 interviews conducted in 1974 documenting the creation and history of Golden Spike historic site. Transcripts available online, audio in Special Collections Reading Room.

Interview with Bernice Gibbs Anderson, 1974

“And there is another story I heard from Park Valley...maybe it's a good thing I can't remember their names, but I'm sure it's authentic because this man lived there for years and… he's dead, of course, but he told me one day that the people out there found one day, bodies of as many as two carloads of Chinese that had been washed up on the north shore of the lake. Now they had been killed some way before that. The sentiment against the Chinese coming in here was so bad at the time that nobody seemed to want them to come in except Central Pacific. And they were good laborers. Had it not been for the Chinese, they wouldn't have built Central Pacific in the time they did.”

Interviews with Japanese-Americans in Utah

“At that time... the railroad gangs were mostly Oriental. Either Chinese or Japanese. And the Great Northern also had Irish immigrants. And the cowboys in Montana didn't like these foreigners invading their country. And putting the Iron Monster through their open plains. So some drunken cowboys came into camp and shot up and killed several of them. And Father escaped and hid out in the fields and came to Salt Lake after about a month of walking nights and hiding in the daytime, which is quite a distance, about 500 miles.”

-- Edward Hashimoto, son of Edward D. Daigoro, a railroad laborer

Japanese Oral Histories

Interviews conducted in the late 1960s by the Japanese-American Citizens League. Many interviewees were born prior to 1900, and discuss work and life on the railroad, laboring in the mines, and farming the land.

Currently available in Reading Room.

Hispanic Oral Histories and Spanish-speaking peoples in Utah oral histories

Many interviewees discuss working for the railroad; transcripts only, currently available in the reading room.

Brigham Young University oral history projects

Interviews with Bamberger Railroad officials, vice president, and other employees of the railroad.

Transcripts only, available onsite.

Brigham Madsen photograph collection

Bamberger Family Photograph Collection

P1937 Tomojiro and Yasu Asahara Collection

P1413 Tsutomu “Tom” Inouye and Shirley Sugimoto Photograph Collection

Need help?

jessica.breiman@utah.edu

www.lib.utah.edu/collections/special-collections/