(The Omaha World-Herald posted the following story by Julie Anderson on its website on July 11.)
COUNCIL BLUFFS — The new Union Pacific Railroad Museum welcomed its 10,000th visitor Wednesday afternoon, just two months after opening.
“We are thrilled to reach this milestone in such a short time,” said Brenda Mainwaring, the railroad’s director of corporate relations.
The museum, housed in the city’s restored Carnegie Library at 200 Pearl St., opened May 10. On that day in 1869, a golden spike was driven in Utah to complete the nation’s first transcontinental railroad.
The museum has had visitors from 49 of the nation’s 50 states, all but Maine.
Rita Muckey of Lawrence, Kan., was the 10,000th person to walk through the museum’s doors. She received a gold pocket watch and a share of Union Pacific stock.
The Union Pacific opened its first museum in its downtown Omaha headquarters in 1921. It moved in 1996 to the Durham Western Heritage Museum. It took about $3.5 million worth of renovations and exhibits to transform the old Council Bluffs library into a museum.