The Ames Monument, erected in 1880 in a desolate stretch of rural Albany County, Wyoming. The pyramidal stone monument, which from a distance mimicks the rocky landscape, was designed by prominent American architect Henry Hobson Richardson, for whom "Richardsonian Romanesque" an entire style of architecture. The Ames Monument is dedicated to Union Pacific Railroad financiers Oakes Ames and Oliver Ames, Jr. The brothers garnered credit for connecting the nation by rail upon completion of the United States' First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869. The monument marked the highest point on the transcontinental railroad at 8,247 feet. However, the Union Pacific Railroad Company twice relocated the tracks farther south, causing the town of Sherman that arose near the monument to become a ghost town. The railroad spared no expense (including Richardson's fee) in creating the monument, effectively to itself. Photo by Carol Highsmith.