Pyramid on the Plains

The Ames Monument was built by the Union Pacific in a high, wind-swept mountain setting, where its four-sided ashlar pyramid of native granite echoes the surrounding landscape. Henry Hobson Richardson, one of the most prominent architects of his time, designed the massive stone structure, his only work west of St. Louis and a work regarded as among his least known but best. Norcross Brothers of Worcester, Massachusetts, built it at a cost of $65,000 between 1880 and 1882, using granite quarried from Reeds Rock a half-mile west of the site. Construction superintendent A.L. Sutherland and 85 workers lived on-site in the town of Sherman, while draft animals skidded stones weighing up to 20 tons from the quarry and wooden cranes hoisted them into place. Augustus Saint-Gaudens designed the bas-relief medallions of the Ames brothers, and along the monument's north side one-foot-high letters in the granite proclaim, "In Memory of Oakes Ames and Oliver Ames."

Wyoming · United States