General Dodge's House: Where the Railroad Was Planned
Near Omaha, Iowa
General Grenville Dodge built this large three-story Victorian mansion in Council Bluffs in eighteen sixty-nine, the same year the transcontinental railroad he helped build was completed. Dodge was the Union Pacific's chief engineer, the man who surveyed the route west and drove the project to its finish at Promontory Summit in Utah. The house, designed by Chicago architect William Boyington, cost thirty-five thousand dollars and commands a terrace overlooking the Missouri Valley.
It became a National Historic Landmark in nineteen sixty-one. Council Bluffs was Abraham Lincoln's chosen eastern terminus of the great railroad, and Dodge's home stands as its monument on this side of the river.
