Railroad Heritage Park

Railroad Heritage Park is a small outdoor museum on the south side of downtown, displaying historic Union Pacific rolling stock including a vintage steam locomotive, a snow plow, and a caboose from the Snow Train — the Union Pacific service that ran through Laramie during the snowbound winters of the 1940s and 1950s. The park is free to visit and gives context to Laramie's foundation as a railroad town.

The park is next to the Laramie Freight Depot, a handsome brick Union Pacific facility that still sees freight traffic on the main line. The railroad tracks run right through the middle of Laramie, a reminder that the town grew up around the line rather than the line arriving later. Worth a 20-minute stop on any walk around the downtown area.

things to do sight history
A story
Laramie's prosperity in the late nineteenth century rested entirely on the Union Pacific Railroad, which established a major repair and maintenance facility here when the transcontinental line was completed in 1869. The 'Big Boy' locomotives — among the largest steam engines ever built — were regularly maintained at Laramie, and the town's economy remained tied to the railroad well into the twentieth century.