The Union Pacific Museum Collection

The Collection's History and Contents

The Union Pacific Museum was founded in 1921, following the discovery of several silver serving pieces from President Abraham Lincoln's funeral car. The Collection now includes a diversity of items relating to the history of the Union Pacific from 1862 to the present, including: furniture from the Lincoln car; furnishings from the Council Bluffs Transfer Hotel; railroad artifacts connected with the ceremony at Promontory Summit, Utah, May 10, 1869; and numerous other items of railroad memorabilia.

Also part of the Collection are General Grenville Dodge's surveying instruments and various lanterns, locks, keys, pieces of china, silver, and weapons from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Collection contains outlaw paraphernalia, various Plains Indian materials, as well as library materials and an extensive photograph collection comprising an estimated 500,000 images from the Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, Chicago and Northwestern, and Missouri Pacific Railroads. A sampling of these images may be viewed online in the UP Photo Gallery.

For information concerning commercial use of images in the Union Pacific Collection, please contact the museum at (402) 501-3843.

The museum staff is unable to assist with genealogy research, real estate issues, accident records, or model railroad inquiries.