Eicholtz, Leonard H.

Railroad construction engineer, of Colorado.

From the description of Diaries, 1867-1869 [microform]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 86118810

Eicholtz was a railroad construction engineer born in 1827 in Pennsylvania. He worked with the corps of engineers of the Pennsylvania Railroad from 1852 until 1854 when he started work with the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad Company. Following the outbreak of the Civil War, Eicholtz entered government service as an assistant engineer with the construction corps of United States Military Railroads. The corps worked to build rail lines from Tennessee to Georgia. When Eicholtz left the service in 1866 he had achieved the rank of Colonel and the position of chief engineer of the U.S. Military Railroads.

In 1866 Eicholtz became resident engineer of the Kansas Pacific Railway Company, and conducted surveys in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. He worked with the Union Pacific Railway Company as superintendent of bridge building from 1868 to 1869, and then as chief engineer with the Central Pacific Railroad Company of the Kansas Pacific eastward from Denver. He was an incorporator and chief engineer of the Denver & South Park Railroad Company (later the Colorado & Southern Railway). In 1878 Eicholtz became director of the First National Bank of Denver, a position he occupied until his death in 1911.

From the description of Leonard H. Eicholtz diaries 1852-1910. (University of Wyoming, American Heritage Center). WorldCat record id: 27763847

Leonard Henry Eicholtz was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on the twenty-third of April, 1827. He was trained as a civil engineer at the Moravian Academy of Lititz. In 1852, he joined the engineers of the Pennsylvania Railroad, for which he worked until 1854, when he took a similar position with the Philadelphia & Erie Railroad Company. In 1857, Eicholtz went to Honduras as part of a survey team for the Honduras Inter-Oceanic railway. A year later he returned to the Philadelphia & Erie Railroad Company.

During the Civil War, Eicholtz acted as an assistant engineer of military railways in the military division of the Mississippi under General Sherman. Eicholtz assisted in the reconstruction of roads as well as in the construction of new railroad lines. By the time he left the military in 1866, he had been promoted to chief engineer.

Eicholtz was hired by the Kansas Pacific Railway Company later in 1866, and for them he surveyed the thirty-second parallel through Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. In 1868, he became superintendent of bridge building for the Union Pacific Railway Company. He stayed with that company until the Union Pacific line connected with the Central Pacific line on May 10, 1869. He was then made the superintendent of construction and chief engineer for the Denver Pacific Railway Company and built that line from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to Denver, Colorado. At the same time, he oversaw the construction of a Kansas Pacific line east from Denver. He also opened a brokerage house with Captain Horace A. Gray during that period.

In 1872, Eicholtz helped to incorporate the Denver & South Park Railway Company, which was subsequently made a part of the Colorado & Southern Railway Company. He became chief engineer of the Denver & South Park line at that time. In 1878, he was named director of the First National Bank in Denver, a position he held until his death.

Eicholtz married Ellen Inslee Smith late in life, at the age of forty-five. The two had five children, four daughters and one son. Eicholtz died on January 3, 1911, at age eighty-four.

From the guide to the Leonard Eicholtz diaries, 1838-1910, (University of Wyoming. American Heritage Center.)