Ames Monument State Historic Site
A blunt 60-foot granite pyramid marks the vanished railroad town of Sherman—and a corporate attempt to monumentalize the financiers behind the transcontinental line.
Artwork inspired by Neltje
Union Pacific completed this 60-foot pyramid in 1882 at the highest point—8,247 feet—on its original transcontinental route. Henry Hobson Richardson designed the elemental mass from rough granite quarried about half a mile west, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens modeled the high portrait medallions of brothers Oakes and Oliver Ames. Trains once passed immediately north beside Sherman, a summit town where locomotives changed for the grade.
The honor was never politically neutral. The Ames brothers’ influence and capital helped drive construction of the railroad, but Oakes was implicated and censured during the Crédit Mobilier financing scandal. Read the monument as Union Pacific’s enormous act of reputation-making: engineering achievement, private profit, political power, and scandal compressed into the same blocks. Circle the pyramid so its overwhelming base and inaccessible portraits change scale as you move.
Then turn away from the stone. Union Pacific relocated the route several miles south in 1901, and Sherman disappeared; the graded former right-of-way remains legible north of the monument if light and ground conditions cooperate. That absence is the site’s sharpest lesson: the company moved, the town vanished, and the memorial stayed behind. A focused visit takes about half an hour, but wind, altitude, silence, and the old alignment reward a slower look.
- Architect
- H. H. Richardson
- Sculptor
- Augustus Saint-Gaudens
- Height
- 60 feet
Quick guide
- Opening focus
- Rough granite from Reed’s Rock
- Comparison
- Saint-Gaudens portrait medallions ↔ The abandoned Sherman rail grade
Four decisions at Ames Monument State Historic Site
- Begin
- Circle the pyramid to feel Richardson’s changing scale.
- Look outward
- Look north for the former grade and vanished Sherman.
- Question
- Set railroad achievement beside the Crédit Mobilier scandal.
- Notice
- Compare rough granite blocks with Saint-Gaudens’s medallions.
Good to know
This is an exposed high-plains monument, not a staffed museum: there are no restrooms, drinking water, indoor shelter, or substantial visitor services. Bring layers even in summer and leave during lightning. Snow, drifting, mud, and strong crosswinds can make the unpaved approach impractical; check Wyoming 511 before committing. View the masonry and medallions from the ground—do not climb the monument.
Notice these
- Rough granite from Reed’s Rock
- Saint-Gaudens portrait medallions
- The abandoned Sherman rail grade