Here's a fun fact: Four months before the Union Pacific Railroad arrived in Cheyenne, surveyor General Greenville Dodge officially named the town and plotted the area on July 4, 1867.

Although Independence Day officially marks Cheyenne's 150th anniversary, there was nothing here at the time.

While overlooking what would soon become the "Magic City of the Plains", Dodge planned the development of a four square-mile area, even angling the streets to give buildings and houses maximum sunlight thoughout the year.

Although a stone marker commemorates the site near the present-day corner of Dey Avenue and West Jefferson Road, it was not set by Dodge. The cornerstone was placed on the site in 1890.

150 years later, it lives on as a reminder of Cheyenne's humble begginings as an unsettled, frontier outpost on the first transcontinental railroad.

 

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