The Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was a rail company in California, Nevada, and Utah in the United States, that completed and operated a railway line between its namesake cities (Salt Lake City, Utah, and Los Angeles, California), via Las Vegas, Nevada. Incorporated in Utah in 1901 as the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, the line was largely the brainchild of William Andrews Clark, a Montana mining baron and United States Senator. Clark enlisted the help of Utah's U.S. Senator Thomas Kearns, mining magnate and newspaper man, to ensure the success of the line through Utah. Construction of the railroad's main line was completed in 1905. Company shareholders adopted the LA&SL name in 1916. The railway was also known by its official nickname, "The Salt Lake Route", and was sometimes informally referred to as "The Clark Road". The tracks are still in use by the modern Union Pacific Railroad, as the Cima, Caliente, Sharp, and Lynndyl Subdivisions. History The development of the railway line that became the LA&SL began in 1871 when the Utah Southern Railroad began laying track southward from Salt Lake City. The Utah Southern, controlled by the larger Union Pacific Railroad (UP), built a line to a station known as Juab, Utah, in 1879. From there a second UP subsidiary known as the Utah Southern Railroad Extension took up the work, completing trackage as far as Milford, Utah, in 1880. By the end of the century, these and other lines had been absorbed into the Oregon Short Line Railroad, a far larger UP subsidiary. Work on extending the Milford line southward began by 1889, but no tracks were actually laid due to financial issues. Construction resumed in 1899 when the route was completed as far as the Utah–Nevada border. Grading work extended into Nevada, and the UP's stated intent was to continue the line all the way to southern California. Another player entered the scene in 1900, when William Andrews Clark acquired the struggling Los Angeles Terminal Railway with an eye to extending the line northeast to Salt Lake. The railroad was reincorporated in 1901 as the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad, and Clark announced plans to construct a line between Salt Lake and southern California. Clark assembled political and financial supporters to assist in the project, both in California and Utah. The competing Union Pacific Railroad and its formidable