Why White River State Park, Indianapolis, is the Gateway to the West, not St. Louis (3 of 3)

The ability to travel to the West Coast all year-round was another advantage to rail. Indianapolis, with its widely accessed Union Station, could send even more people to the promise of California and the rest of the West, without losing four months out of the year to a frozen Missouri River. In 1870 alone, for example, 2,000,000 passengers a year traveled on 80 Union Station trains a day.  They used the first picture that you see here, as its second incarnation, pictured below it, was not built until 1888.