Old Wood: Testing of the Transcontinental Railroad's Woody Legacy
Author(s): Chris Merritt; Elizabeth Hora; Michael Sheehan
Year: 2019
Summary
This is an abstract from the "POSTER Session 3: Material Culture and Site Studies" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.
Renewed interest in the Transcontinental Railroad has resurfaced with the coming arrival of the 150th Anniversary of the completion of the line on May 10, 2019. Partnering with the Bureau of Land Management's Salt Lake Field Office, the Utah Division of State History has coordinated new efforts investigating the story in and around the nation's first transcontintental railroad. Wood analysis and dendrochronology was employed to test extant architectural and archaeological features along the 87-mile long Transcontinental Railroad Line in Box Elder County, Utah. Testing of trestle pylons, railroad ties, and other woody samples from the archaeological and architectural sites along this stretch of public lands has helped to understand the origin of the wood used to build this one-of-a-kind resource.
Cite this Record
Old Wood: Testing of the Transcontinental Railroad's Woody Legacy. Chris Merritt, Elizabeth Hora, Michael Sheehan. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, St. Charles, MO. 2019 ( tDAR id: 449197)
This Resource is Part of the Following Collections
Keywords
General
Dendrochronology
•
Railroad
•
Wood
Geographic Keywords
United States of America
Temporal Keywords
19th Century
Spatial Coverage
min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;
Individual & Institutional Roles
Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology
Record Identifiers
PaperId(s): 427