author
Cy Warman
1855–1914
A journalist, poet, and novelist who turned the drama of railroads and the American West into lively, popular stories. Best known as the "Poet of the Rockies," he wrote with the energy of someone who had worked the lines himself.
4 Audiobooks
The last spike, and other railroad stories
by Cy Warman
The White Mail
by Cy Warman
The Prospector, and The Silver Queen
by Cy Warman, Fitz-Mac
About the author
Born in Greenup, Illinois, in 1855, he began adult life far from literary fame. After early work as a farmer and a failed try in the grain business, he moved west to Colorado during the mining boom, where he worked on the railroads, including as a locomotive engineer. That firsthand experience gave his writing its spark and helped him stand out from other popular writers of his day.
He became widely known in the 1890s through railroad stories and poems that celebrated speed, risk, labor, and frontier life. Magazines such as McClure's helped bring his work to a national audience, and he also published books including The Story of the Railroad and Songs of Cy Warman. During his lifetime he was often called the "Poet of the Rockies," a nickname that captured both his subject matter and his public image.
His work blended journalism, adventure writing, and verse in a way that appealed to readers fascinated by the expanding rail network and the romance of the West. He died in 1914, but his name still survives in accounts of railroad literature and western popular writing from the turn of the twentieth century.