Abraham Lincoln, Grenville M. Dodge & the Transpacific Railroad

Abraham Lincoln arrived in Council Bluffs on August 13, 1859, looking less like a future president and more like what he was — a traveling lawyer with a worn suit, a dusty hat, and long legs that seemed to fold awkwardly off the steamboat. He came west partly to see the Missouri River country for himself, and partly to learn more about the growing railroad interests pushing toward the Pacific.

On this visit, he met Grenville M. Dodge, a young civil engineer whose surveys of the region were already respected. Dodge later recalled that Lincoln approached him with a direct question that bypassed all small talk:

“I am informed you are a railroad engineer, and that you have made surveys.”

Lincoln wanted just one thing: an honest engineering assessment of where a transcontinental line ought to begin. Dodge told him that the most practical starting point on the Missouri River was Council Bluffs, citing the favorable grades leading west through the Platte Valley. Dodge recalled Lincoln listened with intense focus, asking what he later described as “a series of minute questions” about routes, elevations, and obstacles.