Fit for a Hitchcock cameo, Laramie’s train depot turns 100.

The Wyoming college town is linked to the Union Pacific’s 1868 transcontinental railroad. A footbridge gives views of a downtown rooted to the golden age of cowboys.

Sep 29, 2024

“This my briarpatch,” says depot overseer Ron Bagby of the museum and gift shop. Three model railroads and loads of Union Pacific relics clue in visitors.

The Garfield Street Footbridge links west Laramie with the city proper. Afternoon prairie thunderstorms threaten at 7,220 feet of elevation. University of Wyoming is farther to the right.

Laramie’s train depot is turning 100.

The high-plains college town once saw T-Rex-struck paleontologists ship dinosaur fossils back East while down the platform would be romantic couples swapping kisses with cinder.

“Yes, there was a lot of soot in the air from the steam locomotive stacks, mostly in the downtown area,” says longtime resident Dave Wright, who moved from Portland, Ore., to Laramie via a passenger train in 1957. Zipper the family dog came along too.

“The depot was full service for passengers, ticketing, and seating for coach passengers, along with berths for Pullman passengers. At least five passenger trains a day, in each direction, came through Laramie, including The Portland Rose, the (morning) train with mail cars.”

The depot’s centennial is Oct. 6.

The Laramie Train Depot dates to 1924, replacing a bigger version that burned down in 1917.

On the National Register of Historic Places, the century-old brick structure today serves as a museum and events venue. Outside, obedient dogs scamper over lush green grass near a hulking silver snowplow on rails, steam locomotive, crew sleeper car and caboose. Across the street, a familiar Tom Joad soul toughs out chilly nights under a pickup truck canopy. At 7,220 feet, Laramie is too cold to have San Francisco panhandlers.

On a recent Monday, freight trains are thundering along 1st Street, far removed from the fray of college kids moving into dormitories 17 blocks away. Back at the train station, a man in suspenders is assisting a California couple in search of souvenirs.

“This is my briarpatch,” says Ron Bagby, 73, before explaining Laramie’s popularity through a quote he attributes to the late US Sen. Alan Simpson, fond of folksy expressions.

“Laramie is Wyoming’s hometown because it’s (host to) the only four-year university.” Wyoming also has the fewest people of any US state.

A University of Wyoming graduate and retired bus driver, Bagby gives informal tours of the adjoining museum. On display are heaps of Union Pacific track tools and a model railroad layout of vintage Laramie, when the town had two train stations, one of which served short-haul lines to Colorado. The UP line stretched from coast to coast, as it does today.

Laramie’s panoramic footbridge spans the railroad yard, providing clues on the Union Pacific of old. Two of the biggest steam locomotives on earth pulled cars over the Rocky Mountains outside Laramie.

“The UP had a round house for the servicing of steam locomotives, and a full switchyard for composing trains,” says Wright, 78, a retired Wyoming National Guard officer. “The Big Boy locomotives . . . were specifically designed to pull freight trains with a single engine over Sherman Hill between Laramie and Cheyenne. The Challenger engines handled most freight trains.”

Union Pacific track came to Laramie in 1868. The town’s first big depot, which included a hotel and restaurant, burned down in 1917.

In a Simpson kind of mood, Bagby concludes the tour with the type of joke told at Laramie diners, where old men gather for donuts.

“A retired guy, a real braggart, is running late for coffee,” Bagby says. “ ‘The wife and kids were nagging me so I stopped to get some hearing aids. You know me—I always get the best kind.’ ”

“ ‘Really, what kind is it?’ ” inquires a buddy in between coffee sips.

“ ‘Oh, it’s about 11:40.’ ”