Railroads of the West

One caption on this panel carries a stranger story than its text. The Northern Pacific's red and black monad, the trademark on its cars and timetables for decades, came from Korea. At the Chicago world's fair in 1893 the railroad's chief engineer, E. H. McHenry, visited the Korean exhibit, saw the yin-yang device on the Korean flag, and proposed it as the emblem the company had been looking for. It was adopted that year. McHenry had earlier worked on the Stampede Pass tunnel that gave Puget Sound its direct line east.

Where it stands