Name: Hillsdale

 

County: Laramie

 

Authority Name: Hillsdale (Wyo.)

 

GNIS Entry   

 

Longitude: 1042839W

Latitude: 411246N

 

Elevation:  5640/1719

(ft/m)

 

Feature Type: Populated Place

 

Origin of Name:

Named after a Mr. Hillsdale who was killed on duty with the Union Pacific Railroad by Indians. 

Source: WPA

 

Named after Lathrop Hills. A State of Wyoming Historical Marker was erected on September 1973 in Hillsdale. It's inscription reads:

Surveyors Camp. Locating the route of the Union Pacific, the first railroad to the Pacific Ocean. LATHROP HILLS, SURVEYOR FOR THE FIRST TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD KILLED BY INDIANS. On June 11, 1867, Lathrop Hills led a party of surveyors up the nearby Lodgepole Creek, staking out the location for the Union Pacific Railroad, the first transcontinental railroad. Hills was riding out in front of the group when he was attacked by Indians and killed. Within minutes his men drove off the Indians and later reported they found 19 arrow wounds in his body. He was 35. 

 

Hills' work lived after him. By November 14, 1867, the tracklayers had reached Cheyenne and 18 months later a golden spike was driven at Promontory, Utah, completing the first railroad connection between the East and West and opening millions of acres for settlement. The railroad reduced travel time from the six months required by wagon train to five days from Omaha to San Francisco.  

 

Other Names:

 

Alternative Spellings:  

 

History:

Hillsdale Post Office was established on February 21, 1881 with Theodore W. Chaffee as postmaster.

Source: Wyoming Post Offices

 

Station on the Union Pacific Railroad in Laramie County, 20 miles east from Cheyenne. Agriculture the principal industry.

Source: Wyoming State Business Directory, 1910-11

 

Stories:

Near Hillsdale station the traveler gets his first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains. To the west may be seen the dark summits of the Laramie Range-formerly called the Black Hills- and farther south, 60 miles away, is visible in ordinarily clear weather the snow-covered top of Longs Peak (altitude 14,255 feet) and other high mountains of the Front Range of the Rockies.

Source: Guidebook of the Western United States 

 

Maps:

1:24000 Quadrangle: Hillsdale

 

Newspapers: 

 

More Information:

 

   From "History of Wyoming, written by C. G. Coutant, pioneer historian, and heretofore unpublished"

   Annals of Wyoming, Volume 12, No. 3, pp. 242-243

 

Pictures: