The town of Sherman was named for William Tecumseh Sherman, purportedly at his own request. It was located about south-southeast of the modern Sherman Summit and was the highest point on the original alignment of the First Transcontinental Railroad of the Union Pacific Railroad, at an elevation of. Before being named Sherman, Union Pacific construction crews had called the area Lone Tree Pass and Evans Pass. The original name honored James Evans, who surveyed the area searching for a shorter route through Wyoming than the earlier trails which crossed at South Pass. Because the tracks were later moved a few miles south, the original town of Sherman no longer exists, but this is still the location of the Ames Monument, erected by the railroad to mark its original high point. The small town of Sherman arose at the site north of the tracks where trains stopped to change engines on their transcontinental journey. The stop provided a roundhouse with five stalls and a turntable, two section houses, and a windmill with water tank. Trains were inspected at Sherman before beginning the long descent from the Sherman Pass summit, either east towards Cheyenne or west across the high Dale Creek Bridge to the Laramie Valley. The trusses for the original wooden trestle bridge located west of Sherman were prefabricated in Chicago and shipped to the site. The bridge was the highest railroad bridge in the world at the time of its completion in 1868. Several hundred people lived in Sherman, hunkered down upon a rocky, barren landscape interrupted only by a general store, post office, schoolhouse, two hotels, and two saloons. In 1885 William Murphy purchased the land that contained the monument, intending to cover the pyramid with advertising. The Union Pacific Railroad Company had other plans. The company obtained a special deed to the property in 1889. The railroad company's decision to twice relocate the tracks farther south to take advantage of more gradual grades over the Laramie Mountains threatened Sherman's tenuous existence a few hundred yards west of the monument. The town's death knell came in 1918. The railroad company closed its station house and relocated the tracks about three miles south. Residents soon abandoned Sherman, leaving behind a small cemetery that is still present today.
Sherman Summit or Sherman Hill Summit, elevation, is a mountain pass about north-northwest of the ghost town of Sherman at. While not a particularly rugged mountain crossing, it holds special significance as the highest point along the entire length of transcontinental Interstate 80.
Just southwest of present-day Sherman Summit at , at an elevation of about, is the highest point on the original transcontinental Lincoln Highway and its successor, U.S. 30. This location, where the pavement is still in place, is known simply as The Summit. A huge bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln once stood here; it has been moved to Sherman Summit.
As a result of the track relocation, the high point on the railroad, today known as the Overland Route, is now about southeast of the Ames Monument at, at an elevation of. There is no town here, but the official railroad name for this location is, perhaps not surprisingly, Sherman. However, this point is not actually on the crest of the Laramie Mountains, which is now surmounted via the nearby Hermosa Tunnel at the slightly lower elevation of.
