The Monument
Wyoming
Never Built
In Wyoming, there is a single monument dedicated to the transcontinental railroad: the monolithic Ames Monument, honoring the two men who financed — and swindled — the Union Pacific. There is no monument to the laborers who built it. High Iron is here to change that.
What Got
Left Out
After the Civil War — on the occupied lands of the Shoshone, Crow, Arapaho, Comanche, Cheyenne, Ute, and Lakota peoples — the territory we know as Wyoming was one of the most diverse regions in the nation. As settlers moved west, infrastructure was essential, and the labor to build it was urgent.
Immigrant workers came to do extraordinarily dangerous work: digging coal in the mines, laying rail across mountain and plain. Following the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Chinese labor was curtailed and other immigrant communities were recruited to fill the void — workers brought in from across the globe, the diversity itself a calculated strategy to prevent unionization.
"These stories of critical labor, community creation, and people taking care of each other have been erased from this state's origin story — replaced by the myth of the rugged lone white cowboy."
And yet: Wyoming became home to robust, living cultural communities. African Americans, Mexicans, Swedes, Greeks, Italians, Japanese, Slovenians — and dozens more — worked the rails and the mines while also building churches, social clubs, mutual aid societies, and labor organizations that crossed ethnic lines.
They built a national industry and strengthened the U.S. economy and transportation system. They made Wyoming. Their names are not on any monument.
High Iron honors the labor, the community, and the people the official record chose to forget.
The People
Who Were Here
High Iron acknowledges that the I-80 corridor runs through land that was never ceded — the ancestral territories of the Shoshone, Crow, Arapaho, Comanche, Cheyenne, Ute, and Lakota peoples. The rail and mining economy was built on dispossession. We hold both histories simultaneously.
Communities whose stories High Iron carries:
Rock Springs, Wyoming boasted over 60 nationalities during the peak of the rail and coal era. That history is not an asterisk — it is the story.
Highlighted communities have direct representation in High Iron's current installations. All communities are part of the history we honor.
Disrupting the
Master Narrative
Wyoming's official historical narrative has long centered the rugged individual settler — the lone white cowboy, the self-made homesteader. That story is not false, but it is radically incomplete. It was built by erasing the contributions of the workers, migrants, and communities without whom the state would not exist.
"High Iron is here to disrupt and rectify these mythological master narratives — not to replace one story with another, but to make room for the full truth."
This work is urgent. Wyoming is among the states that have passed legislation limiting the teaching of accurate and diverse American history. High Iron takes that context seriously. A monument that travels — that comes to the people, for free, in the communities whose ancestors built the rails — is itself an act of resistance and repair.
Re:Generation
2024 Cohort
High Iron is a proud member of Monument Lab's Re:Generation 2024 cohort — one of ten teams selected nationally to create or expand public art, public history, or public humanities projects.
Re:Generation specifically prioritizes projects with creative representation of erased, suppressed, or threatened stories — particularly in states that have passed legislation restricting the teaching of accurate and diverse American history. High Iron was selected because this work is exactly what that means in practice.
A national program supporting ten teams working to expand the American commemorative landscape — centering erased histories, suppressed stories, and the communities history left behind.
Learn about Re:Generation →What We
Believe
We believe in shining light on regional rail labor history that amplifies the contribution and community creation of migrant and immigrant laborers.
We believe in the transformative power of storytelling.
We believe in co-creativity and cross-cultural conversations that build on community strengths while elevating and restoring erased historical narratives.
We believe that art is critical to how we understand, experience, and imagine the past, present, and future.
Amplify a long and ongoing history of immigrant contribution to the state of Wyoming.
Support communities along the I-80 corridor as they engage with and celebrate their rail labor history.
Share the complex stories of Wyoming with each other — and with a wider audience beyond the state.
Explore how individual life histories connect to the broader cultural and historical dynamics of Wyoming.
Connect with individuals and organizations doing similar commemorative work — and build in cooperation and partnership.
How We Work
Process matters as much as outcomes
How we do this work is inseparable from what the work means. Care, reciprocity, and accountability are built into every step.
Think beyond the rails
We acknowledge the peoples and environments that were here first — and hold the railroad's history alongside the displacement that made it possible.
Give storytellers agency
Nothing about us, without us. Communities are co-authors of this project, not subjects. Participation is always on their terms.
Build community as a team and a town
High Iron is a collective endeavor. We invest in the relationships between collaborators as much as in the product they create together.
Maintain open, iterative feedback
We don't arrive with fixed answers. The project grows and changes through ongoing conversation with the communities it serves.
Acknowledge economic & historic impact
We name the social, economic, and historic weight of the railroad honestly — including its role in dispossession and the exploitation of labor.
Questions About
High Iron
High Iron is a mobile monument built inside a transformed 1950s railroad boxcar. Nine public artists created installations that honor the immigrant and migrant labor communities that built Wyoming's rail and mining economy. The car tours the I-80 corridor through 2029, stopping in the former rail towns of Laramie, Cheyenne, Rawlins, Rock Springs, and Evanston — free and fully accessible at every stop.
Not exactly. High Iron is a public art installation, an oral history archive, and a community gathering place all at once. There are no velvet ropes and no admission fee. You can come inside, listen to oral histories, participate in programming, and add your own story to the archive. Think of it as a monument that moves — and one that talks back.
Everyone — and especially the communities whose ancestors built Wyoming's rails and worked its mines. If your family has roots in the I-80 corridor, in rail or mining labor, or in the immigrant and migrant communities that made this state, High Iron is for you. It is also for students, educators, historians, artists, and anyone curious about the full story of Wyoming.
High Iron is fiscally sponsored by ALCES Community Works, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Laramie, Wyoming. The project has received support from Monument Lab's Re:Generation program, the Wyoming Arts Council, the Wyoming 250 Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Mellon Foundation, the Wyoming Humanities Council, and a growing community of individual donors and organizational sponsors. Donations are tax-deductible.
Yes — and we hope you will. The oral history archive at the heart of High Iron grows with every stop on the tour. You can record your story inside the boxcar during open hours, submit photos, audio, or video through our website, or simply write to us. You control how your story is shared and whether it's attributed to you by name.
Use the group visit form on our Visit page. We ask for a minimum of 72 hours notice for groups of 10 or more. Educator guides and curriculum-connected materials are available for K–12 groups. Reach out even if your timeline is tight — we do our best to accommodate all requests.
Donate at any level through our Give page — all donations are tax-deductible. You can also become an organizational sponsor, volunteer at events, share our programming with your networks, or simply show up. The most important thing you can do is bring someone with you.
The short answer: very carefully, with a crane and a semi. High Iron's boxcar doesn't have wheels and doesn't run on tracks — it lives on a trailer. The car was hauled from a field in Rigby, Idaho to Laramie by semi-truck, then lifted into place by crane. That same process happens at every stop on the tour. It's one of the more spectacular things you can witness — a 60-foot painted boxcar swinging through the air before it settles into its new home.
High Iron in the News
Get in Touch
Questions, partnership inquiries, media requests, or just want to say hello.