Tourists and residents can immerse themselves in the past through free, self-guided tours at the historic Echo Church.

The 1,000-square foot structure that was built in 1876 is open from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. every Saturday through Memorial Day weekend. As an added highlight, the church, which is overseen by the Echo Community and Historical Organization, aptly acronymed as ECHO, is showcasing the “A World Transformed: The Transcontinental Railroad in Utah” exhibit, said Sandra Morrison, the ECHO board of trustees treasurer.

“The original exhibit was showcased during the railroad’s 150th anniversary in 2019 at the Utah State Capitol, and after that, the Utah Division of Arts and Museums created a traveling exhibition that has been on the road throughout the state since then,” she said. “There are something like 27 different images and interpretive panels, so we split it up between the church’s main floor and lower level.”

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The exhibit recaps the idea behind the railroad and documents its years-long construction and completion from 1863 to 1869, according to Morrison.

“It also addresses the impact the railroad had on Utah, which was quite huge,” she said.

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Before the railroad, people reached Utah from Omaha, Nebraska, a couple of ways, Morrison said.

“You could basically take a stagecoach if you were rich enough, or you could walk for something like three months,” she said with a laugh. “When the train came in, the journey from Omaha was cut down to three days.”

People were drawn to Utah shortly after nearly 6,000 pioneers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints settled in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, Morrison said.

“After that, nearly 3,000 to 5,000 people a year came to the state,” she said. “And the Transcontinental Railroad made it easier for them to do that.”

The railroad first showed up at the head of Echo Canyon in the summer of 1868, according to Morrison.

“Crews spent the entire summer and fall laying tracks down the canyon and reached the town of Echo in January of 1869,” she said. “The town was a little rural stop for pioneers on the Mormon Trail where they could buy supplies and restock their reserves.”

In addition, Echo featured a Pony Express stop that the Union Pacific turned into a big staging area, Morrison said.

“That’s where they stockpiled the rails, timber and other supplies,” she said. “It’s also where the housing for the workers was located so they could work on the next section of tracks that would go down Weber Canyon to Ogden.”

The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad also coincided with the development of steamships, Morrison said.

“And that also sped up the travel across the Atlantic,” she said. “Some people would dock in New York and find transportation to Omaha. Others would sometimes dock in New Orleans and take a boat up the Mississippi River to get to St. Louis and then find ways to get to Omaha. So traveling to Utah went from six months to one week, once they got to the United States.”

The railroad also helped with the industrialization of Utah, especially after silver was discovered in Park City, Morrison said.

“Mining is a very labor intensive industry, and mining jobs, mostly for manual labor, although dangerous, were pretty good for those who didn’t have other qualifications or spoke little or no English,” she said.

Many of the miners were Mormon, Morrison said.

“Back then the church’s leader, Brigham Young, signed a contract with the Union Pacific in 1868, which worked well, because the pioneers’ crops had been inundated with crickets that year,” she said. “So the pioneers were able to earn money for supplies. And with the railroad coming through Evanston, Wyoming, it meant supplies were close by.”

Echo became an important point on the line, because the steam engines burned a whole load of coal and used all of its water in the steep climb to Echo from Ogden, Morrison said. 

“There was a big coal station and water tanks, so by 1900 there were 500 people living in Echo and working for the Union Pacific, which they nicknamed ‘Uncle Pete,'” she said.

The railroad also enabled the shipping of large quantities of ore for processing to San Francisco, Morrison said.

“Silver and lead are heavy, so going from a horse and wagon, which can’t haul large amounts, to engines pulling carts full of ore, helped grow the mining industry here,” he said. “And not only was there mining in Park City. There was mining in Bingham Canyon and the Tooele area. We also tend to forget that Alta was also a mining town.”

“A World Transformed: The Transcontinental Railroad in Utah” will be on exhibit throughout the summer, and the Echo Church plans some free lectures and presentations, Morrison said.

The first is scheduled for 4 p.m. on Saturday June 17, by Utah State University Special Collections Curator Daniel Davis titled “My Mule Enjoyed the Joke: AJ Russell’s Western Adventures 1868-1869.”

“Daniel curated the traveling exhibit, which features some of the nearly 1,000 photographs that Andrew J. Russell took off the Union Pacific building the Transcontinental Railroad,” Morrison said. “Daniel will explore Russell’s background and personality, examining how that influenced the photographs he took.” 

During that time, there were 500 people who lived in Echo, according to Morrison.

“Now there are 50 permanent and hearty residents,” she said. “You have to be hearty, because it takes a certain type of person to live in a town where trains still pass through regularly.”

Morrison, who has been in the history business for her whole career, said preserving the past is the No. 1 mission of the Echo Community and Historical Organization, which was formed in 1982.

“Knowing the history creates a community, and you can see it in Echo,” she said. “The trains have to blow their horns as they go through the crossings in town, and when they do, people are constantly reminded about the connection between the East and West.”