The Durham Museum is offering visitors the opportunity to see one of the top 100 most significant documents in our nation’s history.
Shawna Forsberg, Durham Marketing Director, says original pages of the Pacific Railway Act are on view at the museum through the end of this month. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act on July 1, 1862, establishing Union Pacific Railroad Company.
Because of that, Forsberg says UP was able to build the first transcontinental railroad westward. She says documents from the Museum’s Byron Reed Collection are on display with the Pacific Railway Act.
"A letter from former Omaha Mayor George Armstrong to Byron Reed and it was during service of the Civil War, inquiring about Union Pacific’s progress laying track. There was an 1862 letter to US Navy Flag Officer A.W. Foote. So just some really specific pieces that tie into the Civil War and communication between crucial people here in the Omaha area during the Civil War timeframe.”
Details on the exhibit are available at durhammuseum.org.