The Way West

Col. W. H. Greenwood must have felt a special sense of accomplishment Aug. 19, 1870, as the last rail spike was driven to complete the Kansas Pacific Railway.

Chief Engineer Greenwood had pushed the first railroad across the open plains of Kansas and eastern Colorado. For the most part, the country through which the railroad was built was considered a vast, barren, worthless desert. If anyone had been up to the challenge it was Col. Greenwood.

William Henry Greenwood was born March 27, 1832, at Dublin, N.H. Hal, as he was known to family and friends, discovered early his flair for mathematics, a necessary engineering skill.

Upon his graduation from Norwich (Vt.) University in 1852, Greenwood took a position in Illinois surveying for the construction of new railroads. He was married to Eva Knight in 1857. The couple began married life tending a farm while Hal invented gadgets and did repairs for neighbors.

During the Civil War, Greenwood enlisted in Company H, 51st Regiment Illinois Volunteers, Jan. 17, 1862. He was commissioned a first lieutenant and promoted to captain May 9, 1863.

After the Battle of Stone River, Gen. Rosecrans directed Greenwood to organize a topographical service. From that time forward he served with, and reported to Gen. David S. Stanley, chief of the Cavalry for the Army of the Cumberland.

“Always strong and well, though slender of form, he (Greenwood) was always ready for duty, day and night.”

Near the close of the war President Abraham Lincoln commissioned Greenwood to the position lieutenant colonel and inspector of the 4th Corps. In that capacity. Col. Greenwood supervised the restoration of the Gulf & San Antonio Railroad in Texas.

Col. Greenwood returned to Vermont at war’s end. However, the call of adventure, and the challenge of building a new railroad in the west could not be ignored.

In Kansas, the Union Pacific Railway Company, Eastern Division was struggling to build a line west of the Missouri River. Begun at Wyandotte (Kansas City, Kan.) Sept. 7, 1863, a mere 100 miles of track had been laid by mid-June 1866. Citizens of Junction City watched anxiously as the rails inched westward from the end-of-track town of Wamego.

A passenger train crossed the Blue River and steamed into Manhattan Aug. 20, 1866. Junction City finally received service the first of November. In the spring, rails reached Salina on April 20, 1867.

Col. Greenwood supervised surveys and construction on the line as it rapidly approached the “trackless wilderness” of the buffalo plains. West of Salina a company of investors formed the Ellsworth Town Company on Jan. 15, 1867.

The location of the town was staked Jan. 23, 1867. Col. Greenwood was authorized on April 4 to make the final survey. The plat for the town of Ellsworth was recorded May 4, 1867 at the Register of Deeds office in Salina, Kan.

Within two weeks the town seemed to take root from the prairie sod as buildings, “... were springing up like magic”. Other hardy citizens, “... cut holes into the banks and low bluffs and covered them with tin, hides, and lumber, anything that would keep the elements out and would give them shelter for a season.”

The pattern would be revisited time and again across the plains as the towns of Hays City, Coyote, Sheridan, Monument, Eagle Tail, and Kit Carson, Colo., each took a turn at “end-of-the-track.”

Surveyors, grading crews, and track layers, all suffered the terror of blood curdling raids by the defiant prairie warriors of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Sioux. Greenwood and his men fought off an attack May 13, 1867, at Monument for four hours. Their stock was stolen but no one was killed.

At Pond Creek, west of Fort Wallace, Greenwood’s advanced party of surveyors were involved in another raid on their stock on June 21, 1867. A day later, soldiers from Fort Wallace were nearly overrun before being rescued by reinforcements from the post.

Right up until the track was completed at presentday Strasburg, Colo., Greenwood dealt with attacks along the line. Many harrowing experiences were barely survived. But through sheer determination the Kansas Pacific was completed, and Col. Greenwood moved on to other projects. He continued to advance railroad interests in the west as well as Mexico.

In 1880, he was employed to locate a railroad from Mexico City to the Pacific coast. Riding with two companions Aug. 29, 1880, he set out alone as he had done so many times before to investigate a ravine. Out of the sight of his friends two shots were fired. Bandits took his horse, rifle, and revolver and disappeared before his friends arrived on the scene. The engineering legend was dead. In his short life of 48 years, W. H. Greenwood left an unmatched legacy among men who ventured to lay iron rails across America’s frontiers on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth, KS Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st Road, Geneseo, Kan. Phone (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.