What’s most remarkable about the Gunnison Tunnel? To me, the non-engineer, it is that construction started simultaneously from the east and the west and the tunnels met! But do you remember the old cartoon in Mad Magazine? The first frame shows men driving in the Golden Spike celebrating the new continental railroad. The second frame, an aerial view, reveals those tracks didn’t line up. Oops! Of course, that’s another story.

Let’s go back 140 years. The promise of “free” land brought ...