Mile 0 in Council Bluffs

(Abby Brown, host of FIND Iowa, is standing in front of the back of a bright, yellow cabosse inside the Union Pacific Railroad Museum. The caboose has a door in the center with a window on each side. The door opens onto a small platform with a rail around it. At the top and in the center of the caboose are two round lights, one red and one blue. Two more, larger, round lights are attached to the platform rail.)

[Abby Brown] Here at the Union Pacific Railroad Museum in Council Bluffs, we get to see railroad history come alive. It was awesome that this area was chosen as Mile Zero as the Union Pacific Railroad began its construction westward for the transcontinental railroad.

(Black and white film of a train running along railroad tracks.)

When President Abraham Lincoln was thinking about how to get a transcontinental railroad built, he remembered something Grenville Dodge had told him.

(Painting of President Abraham Lincoln and Grenville Dodge. President Lincoln is looking down at plans on a table. Grenville Dodge is sitting at the table pointing to the plans that are laid out.)

Dodge lived in Council Bluffs and told Lincoln before he was president that he could visualize a way to get a rail line built that could reach the western coast.

(In a black and white photograph, Grenville Dodge sits in an armchair next to a small table with two books on it. He is wearing a dark three-piece suit with a white shirt and black bow tie. He is a light skinned man with a straight nose, thick short hair, and a thick, short, and full beard and mustache.)

(A black and white pen and ink drawing of men laying railroad tracks as a train waits in the distance.)

His vision included Council Bluffs as Mile Zero, which meant the starting point.

[Patricia LaBounty, Union Pacific Railroad Museum] Lincoln, you might know, was a railroad lawyer, and he knew the importance of bridges on the railroad and bridges crossing a river.

(A black and white drawing of Abraham Lincoln sitting in a chair holding a stack of papers. He is wearing a dark three-piece suit with a white shirt and black bow tie. He has light skin and dark, short hair and a beard. He has wrinkles on his forehead and under his eyes.)

They were a pain to build and they could be expensive. So, by Lincoln establishing Mile Zero for Union Pacific in Council Bluffs, he forced Union Pacific to build the bridge.

(A black and white photograph of the first rail bridge crossing the Missouri River. The iron bridge has box-like trusses.)

Mile Zero in Council Bluffs was really important because all of those hundreds of people who were going west to start new lives, they had to buy new things once they got here to take west with them. So Council Bluffs had to find places for people to eat, places for people to stay, and places for them to purchase supplies. And all of that benefited the people who lived here.

(The exterior of the Union Pacific Railroad Museum. It’s a two-story, brick and stone building. The main entrance is set between two stone columns that hold up a portion of the domed central rotunda.)

When you visit the Union Pacific Railroad Museum in Council Bluffs, what you're doing is seeing a window into a railroad and into a history that spans more than 150 years. And a lot of people don't know that that started right here in Iowa at Mile Zero. So when you come here, you get to see the impact that President Abraham Lincoln had on the railroad. You're also going to see artifacts from the time period, artifacts from the construction. And you're going to get to see how a real train operates today.

(Abby pulls a lever inside a train simulation making the train whistle sound.)

[Abby] Here we come!

You can visit the Union Pacific Railroad Museum here in Council Bluffs and learn everything there is to know about Mile Zero.

Funding for FIND Iowa has been provided by The Coons Foundation, Pella and the Gilchrist Foundation.