Usselman, "Lure of Technology," 290-98.
For a collection of pictures, see Maury Klein, Union Pacific, vol. 1: Birth of a Railroad 1862-1893 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983).
Since the Denver and Rio Grande was completed to Leadville in 1880, Pinkertons trip had to be just prior to this.
For roads building to Leadville in 1879, see Railway Age, Jan. 9, 1879, p. 13.
Pinkerton, Personal Record, 52-55.
I take the phrase from Paul Johnson, Sam Patch: The Famous Jumper (New York: Hill & Wang, 2003), 122. Johnson uses it in a somewhat different sense.