In 1880, as the Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) was advancing the former Utah & Northern north toward Silver Bow, Montana, UPRR officials chose Idaho Falls for their principal workshops. A team of one hundred men built “a station, several two-story office buildings; machine, blacksmith, tin, lean, and barter shops; store, ice, dump, sand, and oil houses; water tanks and coal bins; and finally, a roundhouse with stalls for ten engines.”[1]In 1881, the shops turned out the first railway car built in Idaho.[2]

     April 1886 marked a period of labor unrest. UPRR’s workers in Idaho Falls held a brief strike, and UPRR officials threatened retaliation. Then, in May 1886, a wind storm blew the roundhouse off its foundation, reducing it to a heap and injuring both the men and the engines inside.[3] Rather than rebuild, in August 1887, Union Pacific announced that it would move its shops from Idaho Falls south to Pocatello—partly to punish the strikers.[4]

     Although the Idaho Falls roundhouse is gone, UPRR’s Montana Subdivision continues to run through the city, crossing over two arched, stone culverts from the turn of the century. One includes a keystone dated “1900”—a rare example of stone craftsmanship along the old railroad line.

 

Related Sites along the Union Pacific Railroad:

Dillon Depot, on the Union Pacific Railroad's Montana Division

Humphrey, Idaho on the Union Pacific Railroad's Montana Division

Credits and Sources: