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Expert: Lincoln Regarded as Railroad "Founding Father"
Abraham Lincoln is being remembered as a "founding father."

Lincoln lived and was president in the wrong century to be a founding father of the country, but he is being remembered on his 200th birthday as a founding father of the Union Pacific Railroad.

In 1862, Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act, which created the Union Pacific Railroad. The Union Pacific built west from Omaha, Neb., while the Central Pacific built east from Sacramento, Calif. The two lines met in 1869 at Promontory Summit, Utah, linking the Midwest with the West, though it wasn't until 1872 that a bridge was built over the Missouri River to link Nebraska to Iowa and points east.

Author Stephen Ambrose published a best-selling book in 2000, Nothing Like it in the World, about the construction of the transcontinental railroad. Ambrose was born in Lovington, Ill. (Moultrie County) in 1936. He died in 2002.

The Union Pacific is now the nation's largest railroad. In Illinois , it has 2,237 miles of track and 4,015 employees (SOURCE: www.uprr.com/aboutup/usguide/il.shtml). The company, based in Omaha, is sponsoring the display of some rarely-seen Lincoln artifacts, including his notes for his debates with Sen. Stephen Douglas, and his personal scrapbook of newspaper clippings. It is on display now at the Library of Congress in Washington . It will tour the country starting in May, with stops in Chicago and Springfield.

(Illinois Radio Network)
02 10 09 by Newsroom
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