George Alexander Reid

George Alexander Reid was my Great-Grandma Barlow's father. He was born in Salt Lake City in 1862, just a short 15 years after the pioneers arrived in the valley. He grew up in a beautiful home at the corner of 3rd West and North Temple, where BYU Salt Lake and KSL TV are located today. I work only one block west of there and as I walk past that corner daily, I think about the Reids living there in the late 1800's - what life was like for them as Salt Lake was growing around them and where the Salt Lake Temple was being constructed only a couple of blocks away. He grew up knowing Brigham Young for the first 15 years of his life. 

Young George was probably fascinated with trains as he lived only two blocks down from the train station. His father did some carpentry work for the railroad. When George was only seven years old, the trains tracks from the eastern United States met the tracks from the West Coast just north of the Great Salt Lake to form the first transcontinental railroad. George studied and learned all about the railroad and became a train engineer for the Union Pacific Railroad Company.

George met a young lady named Eliza Jane Garrick, whose family benefited from the transcontinental railroad as they arrived by train in Salt Lake City from New York City when she was 15 years old. The Garricks built a house just up the street from the Reids and only a few short years later, George fell in love with the young lady with the east coast accent. More about her next week!