End of the Line

It's hard to tell the age of this photo (it's clearly early) and there is no location information written on the back other than (in very light pencil), the tantilizing phrase, "This is some more of the same job." But in the pile of neglected photos in the antique store where I found this, there were no more similar images. How frustrating!  At any length, this is the point where the wild frontier gets civilized, the arrival of the Iron Horse. For the moment that this photo was taken, the crudely hewn ties are in place, the rails laid but not yet spiked, and they stop in a hundred yards or so. Just days after this photo was taken, more track was laid and this spot, which hosted so many toiling men for such a short moment, was all but forgotten, just a lonely place on a prairie that the later passengers using this rail line barely even noticed.