Born in 1828 in Nunda, New York, Andrew J. Russell worked as a portrait and landscape painter as a young man. In 1862, he organized a local militia unit for service in the Civil War and he learned the craft of photography along the way. Several years later in 1868, he began a project to document the construction of the Union Pacific railroad during its long march to its meeting point with the...

Telling the history of the Union Pacific Railroad is a tall order, but this delightful site does the job quite effectively with historical photographs, maps, and thematic essays. The materials on the site are divided into sections that include "Union Pacific History and Chronologies", "Historical Equipment", "Photos", and "Reference". In the "History and Chronologies" area, visitors can learn...