First transcontinental railroad
First transcontinental railroad | |||
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America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "
The railroad opened for through traffic between Sacramento and Omaha on May 10, 1869, when CPRR President
It brought the western states and territories into alignment with the northern Union states and made transporting passengers and goods coast-to-coast considerably quicker, safer and less expensive.The first transcontinental rail passengers arrived at the Pacific Railroad's original western terminus at the Alameda Terminal on September 6, 1869, where they transferred to the steamer Alameda for transport across the Bay to San Francisco. The road's rail terminus was moved two months later to the Oakland Long Wharf, about a mile to the north, when its expansion was completed and opened for passengers on November 8, 1869.[15][16][N 5] Service between San Francisco and Oakland Pier continued to be provided by ferry.
The CPRR eventually purchased 53 miles (85 km) of UPRR-built grade from Promontory Summit (MP 828) to Ogden, Utah Territory (MP 881), which became the interchange point between trains of the two roads. The transcontinental line became popularly known as the Overland Route after the name of the principal passenger rail service to Chicago that operated over the length of the line until 1962.[19]
Origins
Among the early proponents of building a railroad line that would connect the coasts of the United States was Dr. Hartwell Carver, who in 1847 submitted to the U.S. Congress a "Proposal for a Charter to Build a Railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean", seeking a congressional charter to support his idea.[20][21][N 6]
Preliminary exploration
Congress agreed to support the idea. Under the direction of the
The report did not include detailed topographic maps of potential routes needed to estimate the feasibility, cost and select the best route. However, the survey was detailed enough to determine that the best southern route lay south of the Gila River boundary with Mexico in mostly vacant desert, through the future territories of Arizona and New Mexico. This in part motivated the United States to complete the Gadsden Purchase.[23]
In 1856, the Select Committee on the Pacific Railroad and Telegraph of the US House of Representatives published a report recommending support for a proposed Pacific railroad bill:
The necessity that now exists for constructing lines of railroad and telegraphic communication between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of this continent is no longer a question for argument; it is conceded by every one. In order to maintain our present position on the Pacific, we must have some more speedy and direct means of intercourse than is at present afforded by the route through the possessions of a foreign power.[24]
Possible routes
The U.S. Congress was strongly divided on where the eastern terminus of the railroad should be—in a southern or northern city.[25] Three routes were considered:
- A northern route roughly along the Missouri River through present-day northern Montana to Oregon Territory. This was considered impractical because of the rough terrain and extensive winter snows.[N 7]
- A central route following the Platte River in Nebraska through to the South Pass in Wyoming, following most of the Oregon Trail. Snow on this route remained a concern.
- A southern route across Sonora desert, connecting to Los Angeles, California. Surveyors found during an 1848 survey that the best route lay south of the border between the United States and Mexico. This was resolved by the Gadsden Purchase in 1853.[26][N 8]
Once the central route was chosen, it was immediately obvious that the western terminus should be Sacramento. But there was considerable difference of opinion about the eastern terminus. Three locations along 250 miles (400 km) of Missouri River were considered:
- St. Joseph, Missouri, accessed via the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad.
- Leavenworth, Pawnee and Western Railroad, controlled by Thomas Ewing Jr. and later by John C. Frémont.
- Council Bluffs, Iowa / Omaha, Nebraska, accessed via an extension of Union Pacific financier Thomas C. Durant's proposed Mississippi and Missouri Railroad and the new Union Pacific Railroad, also controlled by Durant.
Council Bluffs had several advantages: It was well north of the Civil War fighting in Missouri; it was the shortest route to South Pass in the Rockies in Wyoming; and it would follow a fertile river that would encourage settlement. Durant had hired the future president Abraham Lincoln in 1857 when he was an attorney to represent him in a business matter about a bridge over the Missouri. Now Lincoln was responsible for choosing the eastern terminus, and he relied on Durant's counsel. Durant advocated for Omaha, and he was so confident of the choice that he began buying up land in Nebraska.[citation needed]
Key people
Asa Whitney
One of the most prominent champions of the central route railroad was Asa Whitney. He envisioned a route from Chicago and the Great Lakes to northern California, paid for by the sale of land to settlers along the route. Whitney traveled widely to solicit support from businessmen and politicians, printed maps and pamphlets, and submitted several proposals to Congress, all at his own expense. In June 1845, he led a team along part of the proposed route to assess its feasibility.[27]
Legislation to begin construction of the Pacific Railroad (called the Memorial of Asa Whitney) was first introduced to Congress by Representative Zadock Pratt.[28] Congress did not immediately act on Whitney's proposal.
Theodore Judah
Theodore Judah was a fervent supporter of the central route railroad. He lobbied vigorously in favor of the project and undertook the survey of the route through the rugged Sierra Nevada, one of the chief obstacles of the project.
In 1852, Judah was chief engineer for the newly formed
In 1856, Judah wrote a 13,000-word proposal in support of a Pacific railroad and distributed it to Cabinet secretaries, congressmen and other influential people. In September 1859, Judah was chosen to be the accredited lobbyist for the Pacific Railroad Convention, which indeed approved his plan to survey, finance and engineer the road. Judah returned to Washington in December 1859. He had a lobbying office in the United States Capitol, received an audience with President James Buchanan, and represented the Convention before Congress.[30]
Judah returned to California in 1860. He continued to search for a more practical route through the Sierra suitable for a railroad. In mid-1860, local miner Daniel Strong had surveyed a route over the Sierra for a wagon toll road, which he realized would also suit a railroad. He described his discovery in a letter to Judah. Also in 1860, Charles Marsh, a surveyor, civil engineer and water company owner, met with civil engineer Judah. Marsh, who had already surveyed a potential railroad route between Sacramento and Nevada City, California, a decade earlier, went with Judah into the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There they examined the Henness Pass Turnpike Company's route (Marsh was a founding director of that company). They measured elevations and distances and discussed the possibility of a transcontinental railroad. Both were convinced that it could be done. Judah, Marsh and Strong then met with merchants and businessmen to solicit investors in their proposed railroad.[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38]
From January or February 1861 until July, Judah and Strong led a 10-person expedition to survey the route for the railroad over the Sierra Nevada through Clipper Gap and Emigrant Gap, over Donner Pass, and south to Truckee. They discovered a way across the Sierras that was gradual enough to be made suitable for a railroad, although it still needed a lot of work.[30]
The Big Four
Four northern California businessmen formed the
Thomas Durant
Former ophthalmologist Dr. Thomas Clark "Doc" Durant was nominally only a vice president of Union Pacific, so he installed a series of respected men like John Adams Dix as president of the railroad. While serving as vice president of Union Pacific he would be a key figure in the Crédit Mobilier scandal which ultimately led to his removal from the company.[40]
Grenville M. Dodge
Major General Grenville M. Dodge served as the chief engineer of Union Pacific during the construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad. In 1865 while fighting against Native-American tribes he would discover a pass in the Laramie Mountains, which would serve as a vital passage for the First Transcontinental Railroad. Dodge would serve in the United States House of Representatives for Iowa's 5th District from 1867 until 1869. During this time he would push for legislation to help the construction of the railroad. [41]
Authorization and funding
In February 1860, Iowa Representative
Federal financing
To finance the project, the act authorized the federal government to issue 30-year U.S. government bonds (at 6% interest). The railroad companies were paid $16,000 per mile (approximately $543,000 per mile today) for track laid on a level grade, $32,000 per mile (about $1,085,000 per mile today) for track laid in foothills, and $48,000 per mile (or about $1,628,000 per mile today) for track laid in mountains. The two railroad companies sold similar amounts of company-backed bonds and stock.[44]
Union Pacific financing
While the federal legislation for the Union Pacific required that no partner was to own more than 10 percent of the stock, the Union Pacific had problems selling its stock. One of the few subscribers was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints leader Brigham Young, who also supplied crews for building much of the railroad through Utah.[45]
Durant manipulated market prices on his stocks by spreading rumors about which railroads he had an interest in were being considered for connection with the Union Pacific. First he touted rumors that his fledgling M&M Railroad had a deal in the works, while secretly buying stock in the depressed
Central Pacific financing
Before major construction could begin, Judah traveled back to New York City to raise funds to buy out The Big Four. Shortly after arriving in New York, Judah died on November 2, 1863, of
Land grants
To allow the companies to raise additional capital, Congress granted the railroads a 200-foot (61 m)
It was far from a given that the railroads operating in the thinly-settled west would make enough money to repay their construction and operation. If the railroad companies failed to sell the land granted them within three years, they were required to sell it at prevailing government price for homesteads: $1.25 per acre ($3.09/ha). If they failed to repay the bonds, all remaining railroad property, including trains and tracks, would revert to the U.S. government.[citation needed] To encourage settlement in the west, Congress (1861–1863) passed the Homestead Acts which granted an applicant 160 acres (65 ha) of land with the requirement that the applicant improve the land. This incentive encouraged thousands of settlers to move west.[citation needed]
Railroad self-dealing
The federal legislation lacked adequate oversight and accountability. The two companies took advantage of these weaknesses in the legislation to manipulate the project and produce extra profit for themselves. Despite the generous subsidies offered by the federal government, the railroad capitalists knew they would not turn a profit on the railroad business for many months, possibly years. They determined to make a profit on the construction itself. Both groups of financiers formed independent companies to complete the project, and they controlled management of the new companies along with the railroad ventures. This self-dealing allowed them to build in generous profit margins paid out by the railroad companies. In the west, the four men heading the Central Pacific chose a simple name for their company, the "Contract and Finance Company." In the east, the Union Pacific selected a foreign name, calling their construction firm "Crédit Mobilier of America."[44] The latter company was later implicated in a far-reaching scandal which would greatly effect the railroads purpose, described later.
Also, the lack of federal oversight provided both companies with incentives to continue building their railroads past one other, since they were each being paid, and receiving land grants, based on how many miles of track they laid, even though only one track would eventually be used. This tacitly-agreed profiteering activity was captured (probably accidentally) by Union Pacific photographer Andrew J. Russell in his images of the Promontory Trestle construction.[53]
Labor and wages
Many of the
After 1864, the Central Pacific Railroad received the same Federal financial incentives as the Union Pacific Railroad, along with some construction bonds granted by the state of California and the city of San Francisco. The Central Pacific hired some Canadian and European civil engineers and surveyors with extensive experience building railroads, but it had a difficult time finding semi-skilled labor. Most Caucasians in California preferred to work in the mines or agriculture. The railroad experimented by hiring local emigrant Chinese as manual laborers, many of whom were escaping the poverty and terrors of the war (especially the Punti–Hakka Clan Wars) in the Sze Yup districts in the Pearl River Delta of Guangdong province in China.[56]: 7 [57]: 15–37 When they proved themselves as workers, the CPRR from that point forward preferred to hire Chinese, and even set up recruiting efforts in Canton.[58] Despite their small stature[59] and lack of experience, the Chinese laborers were responsible for most of the heavy manual labor since only a very limited amount of that work could be done by animals, simple machines, or black powder. The railroad also hired some black people escaping the aftermath of the American Civil War.[60] Most of the black and white workers were paid $30 per month and given food and lodging. Most Chinese were initially paid $31 per month and provided lodging, but they preferred to cook their own meals. In 1867 the CPRR raised their wage to $35 (equivalent to $760 in 2023) per month after a strike.[58][61][62] CPRR came to see the advantage of good workers employed at low wages: "Chinese labor proved to be Central Pacific's salvation."[63]: 30
Transcontinental route
Construction begun
The Central Pacific broke ground on January 8, 1863. Because of insufficient transportation alternatives from the manufacturing centers on the east coast, virtually all of their tools and machinery including rails,
The Union Pacific Railroad did not start construction for another 18 months until July 1865. They were delayed by difficulties obtaining financial backing and the unavailability of workers and materials due to the Civil War. Their start point in the new city of Omaha, Nebraska, was not yet connected via railroad to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Equipment needed to begin work was initially delivered to Omaha and Council Bluffs by paddle steamers on the Missouri River. The Union Pacific was so slow in beginning construction during 1865 that they sold two of the four steam locomotives they had purchased.[citation needed]
After the American Civil War ended in 1865, the Union Pacific still competed for railroad supplies with companies who were building or repairing railroads in the south, and prices rose.[citation needed]
Rail standards
At that time in the United States, there were two primary standards for track gauge, as defined by the distance between the two rails. In Britain, the gauge was 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
The Bessemer process and open hearth furnace steel-making were in use by 1865, but the advantages of steel rails which lasted much longer than iron rails had not yet been demonstrated.[citation needed] The rails used initially in building the railway were nearly all made of an iron flat-bottomed modified I-beam profile weighing 56 pounds per yard (27.8 kg/m) or 66 pounds per yard (32.7 kg/m).[citation needed] The railroad companies were intent on completing the project as rapidly as possible at a minimum cost. Within a few years, nearly all railroads converted to steel rails.[citation needed]
Time zones and telegraph usage
Time was not standardized across the United States and Canada until November 18, 1883.
Union Pacific route
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The Union Pacific's 1,087 miles (1,749 km) of track started at MP 0.0 in Council Bluffs, Iowa,[7] on the eastern side of the Missouri River. Omaha was chosen by President Abraham Lincoln as the location of its Transfer Depot where up to seven railroads could transfer mail and other goods to Union Pacific trains bound for the west.
Trains were initially transported across the Missouri River by ferry before they could access the western tracks beginning in Omaha, Nebraska Territory. The river froze in the winter, and the ferries were replaced by sleighs. A bridge was not built until 1872, when the 2,750-foot-long (840 m) Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge was completed.
After the rail line's initial climb through the Missouri River bluffs west of Omaha and out of the Missouri River Valley, the route bridged the Elkhorn River and then crossed over the new 1,500-foot (460 m) Loup River bridge as it followed the north side of the Platte River valley west through Nebraska along the general path of the Oregon, Mormon and California Trails.
By December 1865, the Union Pacific had only completed 40 miles (64 km) of track, reaching Fremont, Nebraska, and a further 10 miles (16 km) of roadbed.[67]
At the end of 1865, Peter A. Dey, Chief Engineer of the Union Pacific, resigned over a routing dispute with Thomas C. Durant, one of the chief financiers of the Union Pacific.[68]
With the end of the Civil War and increased government supervision in the offing, Durant hired his former M&M engineer Grenville M. Dodge to build the railroad, and the Union Pacific began a mad dash west.[69]
Former Union General John "Jack" Casement was hired as the new Chief Engineer of the Union Pacific. He equipped several railroad cars to serve as portable bunkhouses for the workers and gathered men and supplies to push the railroad rapidly west. Among the bunkhouses, Casement added a galley car to prepare meals, and he even provided for a herd of cows to be moved with the railhead and bunk cars to provide fresh meat. Hunters were hired to provide buffalo meat from the large herds of American bison.[citation needed]
The small survey parties who scouted ahead to locate the roadbed were sometimes attacked and killed by raiding Native Americans. In response, the U.S. Army instituted active cavalry patrols that grew larger as the Native Americans grew more aggressive. Temporary, "Hell on wheels" towns, made mostly of canvas tents, accompanied the railroad as construction headed west.[70][71]
The
The original emigrant route across Wyoming of the Oregon, Mormon and California Trails, after progressing up the
Efforts to survey a new, shorter, "better" route had been underway since 1864. By 1867, a new route was found and surveyed that went along part of the
The railroad gained about 3,200 feet (980 m) in the 220 miles (350 km) climb to Cheyenne from North Platte, Nebraska—about 15 feet per mile (2.8 m/km)—a very gentle slope of less than one degree average. This "new" route had never become an emigrant route because it lacked the water and grass to feed the emigrants' oxen and mules. Steam locomotives did not need grass, and the railroad companies could drill wells for water if necessary.
Coal had been discovered in Wyoming and reported on by John C. Frémont in his 1843 expedition across Wyoming, and was already being exploited by Utah residents from towns like Coalville, Utah, and later Kemmerer, Wyoming, by the time the Transcontinental railroad was built. Union Pacific needed coal to fuel its steam locomotives on the almost treeless plains across Nebraska and Wyoming. Coal shipments by rail were also looked on as a potentially major source of income—this potential is still being realized.
The Union Pacific reached the new railroad town of Cheyenne in December 1867, having laid about 270 miles (430 km) that year. They paused over the winter, preparing to push the track over Evans (Sherman's) Pass. At 8,247 feet (2,514 m), Evans Pass was the highest point reached on the transcontinental railroad. About 4 miles (6.4 km) beyond Evans pass, the railroad had to build an extensive bridge over the Dale Creek canyon (41°06′14″N 105°27′17″W / 41.103803°N 105.454797°W). The
Located 35 miles (56 km) from Evans pass, Union Pacific connected the new "railroad" town of Cheyenne to Denver and its Denver Pacific Railway and Telegraph Company railroad line in 1870. Elevated 6,070 feet (1,850 m) above sea level, and sitting on the new Union Pacific route with a connection to Denver, Cheyenne was chosen to become a major railroad center and was equipped with extensive railroad yards, maintenance facilities, and a Union Pacific presence. Its location made it a good base for helper locomotives to couple to trains with snowplows to help clear the tracks of snow or help haul heavy freight over Evans pass. The Union Pacific's junction with the Denver Railroad with its connection to Kansas City, Kansas, Kansas City, Missouri, and the railroads east of the Missouri River again increased Cheyenne's importance as the junction of two major railroads. Cheyenne later became Wyoming's largest city and the capital of the new state of Wyoming.
The railroad established many townships along the way:
On December 4, 1868, the Union Pacific reached Evanston, having laid almost 360 miles (580 km) of track over the Green River and the Laramie Plains that year. By 1871, Evanston became a significant maintenance shop town equipped to carry out extensive repairs on the cars and steam locomotives.
In the Utah Territory, the railroad once again diverted from the main emigrant trails to cross the Wasatch Mountains and went down the rugged Echo Canyon (Summit County, Utah) and Weber River canyon. To speed up construction as much as possible, Union Pacific contracted several thousand Mormon workers to cut, fill, trestle, bridge, blast and tunnel its way down the rugged Weber River Canyon to Ogden, Utah, ahead of the railroad construction. The Mormon and Union Pacific rail work was joined in the area of the present-day border between Utah and Wyoming.[79] The longest of four tunnels built in Weber Canyon was 757-foot-long (231 m) Tunnel 2. Work on this tunnel started in October 1868 and was completed six months later. Temporary tracks were laid around it and Tunnels 3 (508 feet or 155 metres), 4 (297 feet or 91 metres) and 5 (579 feet or 176 metres) to continue work on the tracks west of the tunnels.
The tunnels were all made with the new dangerous
The tracks reached
Central Pacific route
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The Central Pacific laid 690 miles (1,110 km) of track, starting in Sacramento, California, in 1863 and continuing over the rugged 7,000-foot (2,100 m)
In June 1864, the Central Pacific railroad entrepreneurs opened Dutch Flat and Donner Lake Wagon Road (DFDLWR).[86] Costing about $300,000 and a years worth of work, this toll road wagon route was opened over much of the route the Central Pacific railroad (CPRR) would use over Donner Summit to carry freight and passengers needed by the CPRR and to carry other cargo over their toll road to and from the ever-advancing railhead and over the Sierra to the gold and silver mining towns of Nevada. As the railroad advanced, their freight rates with the combined rail and wagon shipments would become much more competitive. The volume of the toll road freight traffic to Nevada was estimated to be about $13,000,000 a year as the Comstock Lode boomed, and getting even part of this freight traffic would help pay for the railroad construction. When the railroad reached Reno, it had the majority of all Nevada freight shipments, and the price of goods in Nevada dropped significantly as the freight charges to Nevada dropped significantly. The rail route over the Sierras followed the general route of the Truckee branch of the California Trail, going east over Donner Pass and down the rugged Truckee River valley.
The route over the Sierra had been plotted out by Judah in preliminary surveys before his death in 1863. Judah's deputy, Samuel S. Montague was appointed as Central Pacific's new Chief Engineer, with Lewis M. Clement as Assistant Chief Engineer and Charles Cadwalader as second assistant. To build the new railroad, detailed surveys had to be run that showed where the cuts, fills, trestles, bridges and tunnels would have to be built. Work that was identified as taking a long time was started as soon as its projected track location could be ascertained and work crews, supplies and road work equipment found to be sent ahead. Tunnels, trestles and bridges were nearly all built this way. The spread-out nature of the work resulted in the work being split into two divisions, with L. M. Clement taking the upper division from Blue Cañon to Truckee and Cadwalader taking the lower division from Truckee to the Nevada border. Other assistant engineers were assigned to specific tasks such as building a bridge, tunnel or trestle which was done by the workers under experienced supervisors.[48]
In total, the Central Pacific had eleven tunnel projects (Nos. 3 through 13) under construction in the Sierra from 1865 to 1868, with seven tunnels located in a 2-mile (3.2 km) stretch on the east side of Donner Summit. The tunnels were usually built by drilling a series of holes in the tunnel face, filling them with black powder and detonating it to break the rock free. The black powder was provided by the California Powder Works near Santa Cruz, California. These works had started production in 1864 after the American Civil War had cut off shipments of black powder from the East to the mining and railroad industry of California and Nevada. The Central Pacific was a prolific user of black powder, often using up to 500 kegs of 25 pounds (11 kg) per day.[87]
The summit tunnel (Number 6), 1,660 feet (510 m), was started in late 1865, well ahead of the railhead. Through solid granite, the summit tunnel progressed at a rate of only about 0.98 feet (0.30 m) per day per face as it was being worked by three eight-hour shifts of workers, hand drilling holes with a rock drill and hammer, filling them with black powder and trying to blast the granite loose.[88] One crew worked drilling holes on the faces and another crew collected and removed the loosened rock after each explosion. The workers were pulled off the summit tunnel and the track grading east of Donner Pass in the winter of 1865–1866 as there was no way to supply them, nor quarters they could have lived in. The crews were transferred to work on bridges and track grading on the Truckee River canyon.
In 1866, they put in a 125-foot (38 m) vertical shaft in the center of the summit tunnel and started work towards the east and west tunnel faces, giving four working faces on the summit tunnel to speed up progress. A steam engine off an old locomotive was brought up with much effort over the wagon road and used as a winch driver to help remove loosened rock from the vertical shaft and two working faces. By the winter of 1866–67, work had progressed sufficiently and a camp had been built for workers on the summit tunnel which allowed work to continue. The cross section of a tunnel face was a 16-foot-wide (4.9 m), 16-foot-high (4.9 m) oval with an 11-foot (3.4 m) vertical wall. Progress on the tunnel sped up to over 1.5 feet (0.46 m) per day per face when they started using the newly invented nitroglycerin—manufactured near the tunnel. They used nitroglycerin to deepen the summit tunnel to the required 16-foot (4.9 m) height after the four tunnel faces met, and made even faster progress. Nearly all other tunnels were worked on both tunnel faces and met in the middle. Depending on the material the tunnels penetrated, they were left unlined or lined with brick, rock walls or timber and post. Some tunnels were designed to bend in the middle to align with the track bed curvature. Despite this potential complication, nearly all the different tunnel center lines met within 2 inches (5 cm) or so. The detailed survey work that made these tunnel digs as precise as required was nearly all done by the Canadian-born and -trained Lewis Clement, the CPRR's Chief Assistant Engineer and Superintendent of Track, and his assistants.[48]
Hills or ridges in front of the railroad road bed would have to have a flat-bottomed, V-shaped "cut" made to get the railroad through the ridge or hill. The type of material determined the slope of the V and how much material would have to be removed. Ideally, these cuts would be matched with valley fills that could use the dug out material to bring the road bed up to grade—cut and fill construction. In the 1860s there was no heavy equipment that could be used to make these cuts or haul it away to make the fills. The options were to dig it out by pick and shovel, haul the hillside material by wheelbarrow and/or horse or mule cart or blast it loose. To blast a V-shaped cut out, they had to drill several holes up to 20 feet (6.1 m) deep in the material, fill them with black powder, and blast the material away. Since the Central Pacific was in a hurry, they were profligate users of black powder to blast their way through the hills. The only disadvantage came when a nearby valley needed fill to get across it. The explosive technique often blew most of the potential fill material down the hillside, making it unavailable for fill.[89][90] Initially, many valleys were bridged by "temporary" trestles that could be rapidly built and were later replaced by much lower maintenance and permanent solid fill. The existing railroad made transporting and putting material in valleys much easier—load it on railway dump cars, haul where needed and dump it over the side of the trestle.
The route down the eastern Sierras was done on the south side of Donner Lake with a series of switchbacks carved into the mountain. The Truckee River, which drains Lake Tahoe, had already found and scoured out the best route across the Carson Range of mountains east of the Sierras. The route down the rugged Truckee River Canyon, including required bridges, was done ahead of the main summit tunnel completion. To expedite the building of the railroad through the Truckee River canyon, the Central Pacific hauled two small locomotives, railcars, rails and other material on wagons and sleighs to what is now Truckee, California, and worked the winter of 1867–68 on their way down Truckee canyon ahead of the tracks being completed to Truckee. In Truckee canyon, five Howe truss bridges had to be built. This gave them a head start on getting to the "easy" miles across Nevada.
In order to keep the higher portions of the Sierra grade open in the winter, 37 miles (60 km) of timber
On June 18, 1868, the Central Pacific reached
Central Pacific had 1,694 freight cars available by May 1869, with more under construction in their Sacramento yard. Major repairs and maintenance on the Central Pacific rolling stock was done in their Sacramento maintenance yard. Near the end of 1869, Central Pacific had 162 locomotives, of which 2 had two drivers (drive wheels), 110 had four drivers, and 50 had six drivers. The steam locomotives had been purchased in the eastern states and shipped to California by sea. Thirty-six additional locomotives were built and coming west, and twenty-eight more were under construction. There was a shortage of passenger cars and more had to be ordered. The first Central Pacific sleeper, the "Silver Palace Sleeping Car", arrived at Sacramento on June 8, 1868.[95]
The CPRR route passed through Newcastle and Truckee in California, Reno, Wadsworth, Winnemucca, Battle Mountain, Elko and Wells in Nevada (with many more fuel and water stops), before connecting with the Union Pacific line at Promontory Summit in the Utah Territory. When the eastern end of the CPRR was extended to Ogden by purchasing the Union Pacific Railroad line from Promontory for about $2.8 million in 1870, it ended the short period of a boom town for Promontory, extended the Central Pacific tracks about 60 miles (97 km) and made Ogden a major terminus on the transcontinental railroad, as passengers and freight switched railroads there.
Subsequent to the railhead's meeting at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory, the San Joaquin River Bridge at Mossdale Crossing (near present-day
After the transcontinental railroads were completed, many other railroads were built to connect up to other population centers in Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, Colorado, Oregon, Washington territories, etc. In 1869, the
The original transcontinental railroad route did not pass through the two biggest cities in the so-called
Modern-day
Construction
Most of the capital investment needed to build the railroad was generated by selling government-guaranteed bonds (granted per mile of completed track) to interested investors. The Federal donation of right-of-way saved money and time as it did not have to be purchased from others. The financial incentives and bonds would hopefully cover most of the initial capital investment needed to build the railroad. The bonds would be paid back by the sale of government-granted land, as well as prospective passenger and freight income. Most of the engineers and surveyors who figured out how and where to build the railroad on the Union Pacific were engineering college trained. Many of Union Pacific engineers and surveyors were Union Army veterans (including two generals) who had learned their railroad trade keeping the trains running and tracks maintained during the U.S. Civil War. After securing the finances and selecting the engineering team, the next step was to hire the key personnel and prospective supervisors. Nearly all key workers and supervisors were hired because they had previous railroad on-the-job training, knew what needed to be done and how to direct workers to get it done. After the key personnel were hired, the semi-skilled jobs could be filled if there was available labor. The engineering team's main job was to tell the workers where to go, what to do, how to do it, and provide the construction material they would need to get it done.
Survey teams were put out to produce detailed contour maps of the options on the different routes. The engineering team looked at the available surveys and chose what was the "best" route. Survey teams under the direction of the engineers closely led the work crews and marked where and by how much hills would have to be cut and depressions filled or bridged. Coordinators made sure that construction and other supplies were provided when and where needed, and additional supplies were ordered as the railroad construction consumed the supplies. Specialized bridging, explosive and tunneling teams were assigned to their specialized jobs. Some jobs like explosive work, tunneling, bridging, heavy cuts or fills were known to take longer than others, so the specialized teams were sent out ahead by wagon trains with the supplies and men to get these jobs done by the time the regular track-laying crews arrived. Finance officers made sure the supplies were paid for and men paid for their work. An army of men had to be coordinated and a seemingly never-ending chain of supplies had to be provided. The Central Pacific road crew set a track-laying record by laying 10 mi (16 km) of track in a single day, commemorating the event with a signpost beside the track for passing trains to see.[97]
In addition to the track-laying crews, other crews were busy setting up stations with provisions for loading fuel, water and often also mail, passengers and freight. Personnel had to be hired to run these stations. Maintenance depots had to be built to keep all of the equipment repaired and operational. Telegraph operators had to be hired to man each station to keep track of where the trains were so that trains could run in each direction on the available single track without interference or accidents. Sidings had to be built to allow trains to pass. Provision had to be made to store and continually pay for coal or wood needed to run the steam locomotives. Water towers had to be built for refilling the water tanks on the engines, and provision made to keep them full.
Labor
The majority of the Union Pacific track across the Nebraska and Wyoming territories was built by veterans of the Union and Confederate armies, as well as many recent immigrants. Brigham Young, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, landed contracts with the Union Pacific that offered jobs for around 2,000 members of the church with the hope that the railroad would support commerce in Utah. Church members built most of the road through Utah.[98] Construction superintendent Durant repeatedly failed to pay the wages agreed upon. The Union Pacific train carrying him to the final spike ceremony was held up by a strike by unpaid workers in Piedmont, Wyoming, until he paid them for their work. Representatives of Brigham Young had less success, and failed in court to force him to honor the contract.[99]
The manual labor to build the Central Pacific's roadbed, bridges and tunnels was done primarily by many thousands of emigrant workers from China under the direction of skilled non-Chinese supervisors. The Chinese were commonly referred to at the time as "Celestials" and China as the "Celestial Kingdom". Labor-saving devices in those days consisted primarily of wheelbarrows, horse or mule pulled carts, and a few railroad pulled gondolas. The construction work involved an immense amount of manual labor. Initially, Central Pacific had a hard time hiring and keeping unskilled workers on its line, as many would leave for the prospect of far more lucrative gold or silver mining options elsewhere. Despite the concerns expressed by Charles Crocker, one of the "big four" and a general contractor, that the Chinese were too small in stature[100] and lacking previous experience with railroad work, they decided to try them anyway.[101] After the first few days of trial with a few workers, with noticeably positive results, Crocker decided to hire as many as he could, looking primarily at the California labor force, where the majority of Chinese worked as independent gold miners or in the service industries (e.g.: laundries and kitchens). Most of these Chinese workers were represented by a Chinese "boss" who translated, collected salaries for his crew, kept discipline and relayed orders from an American general supervisor. Most Chinese workers spoke only rudimentary or no English, and the supervisors typically only learned rudimentary Chinese. Many more workers were imported from the Guangdong Province of China, which at the time, beside great poverty, suffered from the violence of the Taiping Rebellion. Most Chinese workers were planning on returning with their newfound "wealth" when the work was completed. Most of the men received between one and three dollars per day, the same as unskilled white workers; but the workers imported directly from China sometimes received less. A diligent worker could save over $20 per month after paying for food and lodging—a "fortune" by Chinese standards. A snapshot of workers in late 1865 showed about 3,000 Chinese and 1,700 white workers employed on the railroad. Nearly all of the white workers were in supervisory or skilled craft positions and made more money than the Chinese.
Most of the early work on the Central Pacific consisted of constructing the railroad track bed, cutting and/or blasting through or around hills, filling in washes, building bridges or trestles, digging and blasting tunnels and then laying the rails over the Sierra Nevada mountains. Once the Central Pacific was out of the Sierras and the Carson Range, progress sped up considerably as the railroad bed could be built over nearly flat ground. In those days, the Central Pacific once did a section of 10 miles (16 km) of track in one day as a "demonstration" of what they could do on flat ground like most of the Union Pacific had in Wyoming and Nebraska.
The track laying was divided up into various parts. In advance of the track layers, surveyors consulting with engineers determined where the track would go. Workers then built and prepared the roadbed, dug or blasted through hills, filled in washes, built trestles, bridges or culverts across streams or valleys, made tunnels if needed, and laid the ties. The actual track-laying gang would then lay rails on the previously laid ties positioned on the roadbed, drive the spikes, and bolt the fishplate bars to each rail. At the same time, another gang would distribute telegraph poles and wire along the grade, while the cooks prepared dinner and the clerks busied themselves with accounts, records, using the telegraph line to relay requests for more materials and supplies or communicate with supervisors. Usually the workers lived in camps built near their work site. Supplies were ordered by the engineers and hauled by rail, possibly then to be loaded on wagons if they were needed ahead of the railhead. Camps were moved when the railhead moved a significant distance. Later, as the railroad started moving long distances every few days, some railroad cars had bunkhouses built in them that moved with the workers—the Union Pacific had used this technique since 1866.[102] Almost all of the roadbed work had to be done manually, using shovels, picks, axes, two-wheeled dump carts, wheelbarrows, ropes, scrapers, etc., with initially only black powder available for blasting. Carts pulled by mules, and horses were about the only labor-saving devices available then. Lumber and ties were usually provided by independent contractors who cut, hauled and sawed the timber as required.
Tunnels were blasted through hard rock by drilling holes in the rock face by hand and filling them with black powder. Sometimes cracks were found which could be filled with powder and blasted loose. The loosened rock would be collected and hauled out of the tunnel for use in a fill area or as roadbed, or else dumped over the side as waste. A foot or so advance on a tunnel face was a typical day's work. Some tunnels took almost a year to finish and the Summit Tunnel, the longest, took almost two years. In the final days of working in the Sierras, the recently invented nitroglycerin explosive was introduced and used on the last tunnels including Summit Tunnel.[103][104]
Supply trains carried all the necessary material for the construction up to the railhead, with mule or horse-drawn wagons carrying it the rest of the ways if required. Ties were typically unloaded from horse-drawn or mule-drawn wagons and then placed on the track ballast and leveled to get ready for the rails. Rails, which weighed the most, were often kicked off the flatcars and carried by gangs of men on each side of the rail to where needed. The rails just in front of the rail car would be placed first, measured for the correct gauge with gauge sticks and then nailed down on the ties with spike mauls. The fishplates connecting the ends of the rails would be bolted on and then the car pushed by hand to the end of the rail and rail installation repeated.
Track ballast was put between the ties as they progressed. Where a proper railbed had already been prepared, the work progressed rapidly. Constantly needed supplies included "food, water, ties, rails, spikes, fishplates, nuts and bolts, track ballast, telegraph poles, wire, firewood (or coal on the Union Pacific) and water for the steam train locomotives, etc."[102] After a flatcar was unloaded, it would usually be hooked to a small locomotive and pulled back to a siding, so another flatcar with rails etc. could be advanced to the railhead. Since juggling railroad cars took time on flat ground, where wagon transport was easier, the rail cars would be brought to the end of the line by steam locomotive, unloaded, and the flat car returned immediately to a siding for another loaded car of either ballast or rails. Temporary sidings were often installed where it could be easily done to expedite getting needed supplies to the railhead.
The railroad tracks, spikes, telegraph wire, locomotives, railroad cars, supplies etc. were imported from the east on sailing ships that sailed the nearly 18,000-mile (29,000 km), 200-day trip around
Central Pacific construction
On January 8, 1863, Governor
The first step of construction was to survey the route and determine the locations where large excavations, tunnels and bridges would be needed. Crews could then start work in advance of the railroad reaching these locations. Supplies and workers were brought up to the work locations by wagon teams and work on several different sections proceeded simultaneously. One advantage of working on tunnels in winter was that tunnel work could often proceed since the work was nearly all "inside". Living quarters would have to be built outside and getting new supplies was difficult. Working and living in winter in the presence of snow slides and avalanches caused some deaths.[106]
To carve a tunnel, one worker held a rock drill on the granite face while one to two other workers swung eighteen-pound sledgehammers to sequentially hit the drill which slowly advanced into the rock. Once the hole was about 10 inches (25 cm) deep, it would be filled with black powder, a fuse set and then ignited from a safe distance. Nitroglycerin, which had been invented less than two decades before the construction of the first transcontinental railroad, was used in relatively large quantities during its construction. This was especially true on the Central Pacific Railroad, which owned its own nitroglycerin plant to ensure it had a steady supply of the volatile explosive.[107] This plant was operated by Chinese laborers as they were willing workers even under the most trying and dangerous of conditions.[108]
Chinese laborers were also crucial in the construction of 15 tunnels along the railroad's line through the Sierra Nevada mountains. These were about 32 feet (10 m) high and 16 feet (5 m) wide.[109] When tunnels with vertical shafts were dug to increase construction speed, and tunneling began in the middle of the tunnel and at both ends simultaneously. At first hand-powered derricks were used to help remove loose rocks up the vertical shafts. These derricks were later replaced with steam hoists as work progressed. By using vertical shafts, four faces of the tunnel could be worked at the same time, two in the middle and one at each end. The average daily progress in some tunnels was only 0.85 feet (26 cm) a day per face, which was very slow,[109] or 1.18 feet (36 cm) daily according to historian George Kraus.[58]: 49 J. O. Wilder, a Central Pacific-Southern Pacific employee, commented that "The Chinese were as steady, hard-working a set of men as could be found. With the exception of a few whites at the west end of Tunnel No. 6, the laboring force was entirely composed of Chinamen with white foremen and a "boss/translator". A single foreman (often Irish) with a gang of 30 to 40 Chinese men generally constituted the force at work at each end of a tunnel; of these, 12 to 15 men worked on the heading, and the rest on the bottom, removing blasted material. When a gang was small or the men were needed elsewhere, the bottoms were worked with fewer men or stopped so as to keep the headings going."[58]: 49 The laborers usually worked three shifts of 8 hours each per day, while the foremen worked in two shifts of 12 hours each, managing the laborers.[110] Once out of the Sierra, construction was much easier and faster. Under the direction of construction superintendent James Harvey Strobridge,[111] Central Pacific track-laying crews set a record with 10 miles 56 feet (16.111 km) of track laid in one day on April 28, 1869. Horace Hamilton Minkler, track foreman for the Central Pacific, laid the last rail and tie before the Last Spike was driven.
Union Pacific construction
The major investor in the Union Pacific was Thomas Clark Durant,
In the East, the progress started in Omaha, Nebraska, by the Union Pacific Railroad which initially proceeded very quickly because of the open terrain of the
Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's first postwar command (Military Division of the Mississippi) covered the territory west of the Mississippi and east of the Rocky Mountains, and his top priority was to protect the construction of the railroads. In 1867, he wrote to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, "we are not going to let thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress" of the railroads.[116]
"On the ground in the West, Gen. Philip Henry Sheridan, assuming Sherman's command, took to his task much as he had done in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War, when he ordered the "scorched earth" tactics that presaged Sherman's March to the Sea."[116]
"The devastation of the buffalo population signalled the end of the Indian Wars, and Native Americans were pushed into reservations. In 1869, the Comanche chief Tosawi was reported to have told Sheridan, "Me Tosawi. Me good Indian," and Sheridan allegedly replied, "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead." The phrase was later misquoted, with Sheridan supposedly stating, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." Sheridan denied he had ever said such a thing."[116]
"By the end of the 19th century, only 300 buffalo were left in the wild. Congress finally took action, outlawing the killing of any birds or animals in Yellowstone National Park, where the only surviving buffalo herd could be protected. Conservationists established more wildlife preserves, and the species slowly rebounded. Today, there are more than 200,000 bison in North America."[116]
"Sheridan acknowledged the role of the railroad in changing the face of the American West, and in his Annual Report of the General of the U.S. Army in 1878, he acknowledged that the Native Americans were scuttled to reservations with no compensation beyond the promise of religious instruction and basic supplies of food and clothing—promises, he wrote, which were never fulfilled."[116]
"We took away their country and their means of support, broke up their mode of living, their habits of life, introduced disease and decay among them, and it was for this and against this they made war. Could any one expect less? Then, why wonder at Indian difficulties?"[116]
The "Last Spike" ceremony
Six years after the groundbreaking, laborers of the Central Pacific Railroad from the west and the Union Pacific Railroad from the east met at
It was at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869, that the two engines met. Leland Stanford drove The Last Spike (or
Aftermath
Railroad developments
When the last spike was driven, the rail network was not yet connected to the Atlantic or Pacific but merely connected Omaha to Sacramento. To get from Sacramento to the Pacific, the Central Pacific purchased in 1867 the struggling
The original route from the
Very early on, the Central Pacific learned that it would have trouble maintaining an open track in winter across the
Both railroads soon instituted extensive upgrade projects to build better bridges, viaducts and dugways as well as install heavier duty rails, stronger ties, better road beds etc. The original track had often been laid as fast as possible with only secondary attention to maintenance and durability. The primary incentive had been getting the subsidies, which meant that upgrades of all kinds were routinely required in the following years. The cost of making these upgrades was relatively small once the railroad was operating. Once the railroad was complete supplies could be moved from distant factories directly to the construction site by rail.
The Union Pacific would not connect Omaha to Council Bluffs until completing the Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge in 1872.[119]
Several years after the end of the Civil War, the competing railroads coming from Missouri finally realized their initial strategic advantage and a building boom ensued. In July 1869, the
Kansas City's head start in connecting to a true transcontinental railroad contributed to it rather than Omaha becoming the dominant rail center west of Chicago.
The Kansas Pacific became part of the Union Pacific in 1880.
On June 4, 1876, an express train called the Transcontinental Express arrived in San Francisco via the first transcontinental railroad only 83 hours and 39 minutes after it had left New York City. Only ten years before, the same journey would have taken months over land or weeks on ship, possibly all the way around South America.
The Central Pacific got a direct route to San Francisco when it was merged with the
Having been bypassed with the completion of the Lucin Cutoff in 1904, the Promontory Summit rails were pulled up in 1942 to be recycled for the World War II effort. This process began with a ceremonial "undriving" at the Last Spike location.[120][121]
Crédit Mobilier
Despite the transcontinental success and millions in government subsidies, the Union Pacific faced bankruptcy less than three years after the Last Spike as details surfaced about overcharges that Crédit Mobilier had billed Union Pacific for the formal building of the railroad. The scandal hit epic proportions in the 1872 United States presidential election, which saw the re-election of Ulysses S. Grant and became the biggest scandal of the Gilded Age. It would not be resolved until the death of the congressman who was supposed to have reined in its excesses but instead wound up profiting from it.
Durant had initially come up with the scheme to have Crédit Mobilier subcontract to do the actual track work. Durant gained control of the company after buying out employee Herbert Hoxie for $10,000. Under Durant's guidance, Crédit Mobilier was charging Union Pacific often twice or more the customary cost for track work. The process mired down Union Pacific work.
Lincoln asked Massachusetts Congressman Oakes Ames, who was on the railroad committee, to clean things up and get the railroad moving. Ames got his brother Oliver Ames Jr. named president of the Union Pacific, while he became president of Crédit Mobilier.[122]
Ames then in turn gave stock options to other politicians while at the same time continuing the lucrative overcharges. The scandal was to implicate Vice President
The scandal broke in 1872 when the
Durant later left the Union Pacific and a new rail baron, Jay Gould, became the dominant stockholder. As a result of the Panic of 1873, Gould was able to pick up bargains, among them the control of the Union Pacific Railroad and Western Union.[123]
Visible remains
Visible remains of the historic line are still easily located—hundreds of miles are still in service today, especially through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and canyons in Utah and Wyoming. While the original rail has long since been replaced because of age and wear, and the roadbed upgraded and repaired, the lines generally run on top of the original, handmade grade. Vista points on
In areas where the original line has been bypassed and abandoned, primarily because of the Lucin Cutoff re-route in Utah, the original road grade is still obvious, as are numerous cuts and fills, especially the Big Fill a few miles east of Promontory. The sweeping curve which connected to the east end of the Big Fill now passes a Thiokol rocket research and development facility.
In 1957, Congress authorized the Golden Spike National Historic Site, which was redesignated the
Current passenger service
In popular culture
The joining of the Union Pacific line with the Central Pacific line in May 1869 at
While not exactly accurate, John Ford's 1924 silent movie The Iron Horse captures the fervent nationalism that drove public support for the project. Among the cooks serving the film's cast and crew between shots were some of the Chinese laborers who worked on the Central Pacific section of the railroad.
The feat is depicted in various movies, including the 1939 film Union Pacific, starring Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck and directed by Cecil B. DeMille, which depicts the fictional Central Pacific investor Asa Barrows obstructing attempts of the Union Pacific to reach Ogden, Utah.
The 1939 movie is said to have inspired the Union Pacific Western television series starring Jeff Morrow, Judson Pratt and Susan Cummings which aired in syndication from 1958 until 1959.
The 1962 film How the West Was Won has a whole segment devoted to the construction; one of the movie's most famous scenes, filmed in Cinerama, is of a buffalo stampede over the railroad.
The construction of what presumably is – or is suggested to be – the transcontinental railroad provides the backdrop of the 1968 epic Spaghetti Western Once Upon a Time in the West, directed by Italian director Sergio Leone.
Graham Masterton's 1981 novel A Man of Destiny (published in the UK as Railroad) is a fictionalized account of the line's construction.
The 1993 children's book Ten Mile Day by Mary Ann Fraser tells the story of the record setting push by the Central Pacific in which they set a record by laying 10 miles (16 km) of track in a single day on April 28, 1869, to settle a $10,000 bet.
Kristiana Gregory's 1999 book The Great Railroad Race (part of the "Dear America" series) is written as the fictional diary of Libby West, who chronicles the end of the railroad construction and the excitement that engulfed the country at the time.
In the 1999 Will Smith film Wild Wild West, the joining ceremony is the setting of an assassination attempt on then U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant by the film's antagonist Dr. Arliss Loveless.
The main character in The Claim (2000) is a surveyor for the Central Pacific Railroad, and the film is partially about the efforts of a frontier mayor to have the railroad routed through his town.
In the 2002 DreamWorks Animation movie Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, the title character, a horse named Spirit, is delivered with other horses to pull a steam locomotive at a work site for the transcontinental railroad.
The
The building of the railway is covered by the 2004 BBC documentary series Seven Wonders of the Industrial World in episode 6, "The Line".
The popular sci-fi television show
The construction of the transcontinental railroad provides the setting for the AMC television series
The campaign mode of Kalypso Media's 2018 video game Railway Empire covers the construction of the transcontinental railroad and features key figures such as Thomas Durant and Collis Huntington.
See also
- Chin Lin Sou
- History of rail transportation in California
- Interstate 80 – present-day New York-to-San Francisco transport link (highway)
- List of heritage railroads in the United States
- Overland Route (Union Pacific Railroad)
- Transcontinental railroad
Notes
- ^ The total value of the thirty year 6% US Government subsidy bonds issued to the three companies was $55,092,192 and the amount of federal lands specified by Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862 and 1864 to which the UPRR, CPRR and WPRR were entitled was 21,100,000 acres (8,500,000 hectares) of which 2,391,009 acres (967,607 hectares) had been patented as of March 1876.[6]
- ^ Paddle steamers linked Sacramento to the cities and their harbor facilities in the San Francisco Bay until late 1869, when the CPRR completed and opened the Western Pacific portion (which the CPRR had acquired control of in 1867–68 to Alameda first and then to Oakland.)
- ^ "The charter of the last-named Company [Western Pacific Railroad] contemplated a line from Sacramento toward San Francisco, making the circuit of the Bay of that name [to San José]. Their franchise has recently [late 1867] been assigned to parties in the interest of the Central Pacific Railroad Company; and it is probable that this line will be formally incorporated with the Central Pacific Railroad, and the road extended from Sacramento to San Francisco by the "best, most direct and practicable route" so soon as the overland connection is completed. In the meantime the travel is abundantly accommodated by first-class steamers." – Central Pacific Railroad Company of California "Railroad Across the Continent, with an account of the Central Pacific Railroad of California", pp. 9-10, New York: Brown & Hewitt, Printers. September 1868.
- ^ The legal "date of completion" of the WPRR grade was subsequently designated to be January 22, 1870.[12] The formal consolidation of the Central Pacific Railroad of California with the Western Pacific Railroad Co., San Joaquin Valley Railroad Co., and San Francisco, Oakland & Alameda Railroad Co. under the name of the Central Pacific Railroad Company became effective on June 22, 1870, with the filing of Articles of Consolidation drawn under the laws of California with the California Secretary of State.[13][14]
- Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, et seq. required that an official date of completion be determined for the purpose of determining how other provisions of the Acts would be carried out. November 6, 1869, was confirmed as being that date by the US Supreme Court in Part I of the Court's Opinion and Order dated January 27, 1879, in re Union Pacific Railroad vs. United States (99 U.S. 402).[17][18]
- ^ Carver's 1847 proposal records himself as having written a newspaper article on the subject in 1837. Some sources say that he wrote such an article in 1832.
- ^ Later, the Northern Pacific Railway (NP) found and built a better route across the northern tier of the western United States from Minnesota to the Pacific Coast. It was approved by Congress in 1864 and given nearly 40 million acres (160,000km2) of land grants, which it used to raise money in Europe. Construction began in 1870 and the main line opened all the way from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean on September 8, 1883.
- ^ The southern route was constructed in 1880 when the Southern Pacific Railroad crossed Arizona territory.
References
- ^ Vernon, Edward (Ed) "Travelers' Official Railway Guide of the United States and Canada" Philadelphia: The National General Ticket Agents' Association. June, 1870, Tables 215, 216
- ^ Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, §2 & §3
- ^ Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, §5 & §6
- ^ "First Mortgage Bonds of the Central Pacific Railroad, 1867". www.cprr.org. Archived from the original on January 26, 2019. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^ "CPRR Ephemera and Collectibles - $1,000 Pacific Railroad Bond, City and County of San Francisco, June 24, 1864". www.cprr.org. Archived from the original on January 26, 2019. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
- ^ "Report on the Pacific Railroads", US House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, House Ex. Doc. #440, 44th Congress, First Session, April 25, 1876, pp. 3, 6
- ^ a b Executive Order of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, Fixing the Point of Commencement of the Union Pacific Railroad at Council Bluffs, Iowa, dated March 7, 1864 (38th Congress, 1st Session SENATE Ex. Doc. No. 27).
- ISBN 1-4115-9993-4. p. 11.
- ^ "Appleton's Railway and Steam Navigation Guide". New York: D. Appleton & Co., December 1870. p. 236.
- ^ Bowman, J. N. "Driving the Last Spike at Promontory, 1869 California Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. XXXVI, No. 2, June 1957, pp. 96–106, and Vol. XXXVI, No. 3, September 1957, pp. 263–274.
- ^ Hill, Thomas "The Last Spike" San Francisco: Thomas Hill (privately published). January 1881.
- ^ Letter from Charles F. Conant, Assistant Secretary, US Department of the Treasury, to US Rep. William Lawrence (R-OH8), March 9, 1876
- ^ Letter from Z.B. Sturgus, Chief, Lands and Railroad Division, Office of the Secretary, US Department of the Interior, to US Rep. William Lawrence (R-OH8), April 28, 1876
- ^ Speech by Rep. William A. Piper (D-CA1) in the US House of Representatives, April 8, 1876
- ISBN 9780520948877.
- ISBN 9780520055124.
- ^ "Pacific Railroad Officially Completed on November 6, 1869". cprr.org.
- ^ "Union Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 99 U.S. 402, 25 L. Ed. 274, 1878 U.S. LEXIS 1556 – CourtListener.com". CourtListener.
- ISBN 0-7858-2573-8; BINC: 3099794. pp. 44–45.
- ^ Carver, Dr. Hartwell "Proposal for a Charter to Build a Railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean" Washington, D.C., January 18, 1847, Centpacrr.com
- ^ "Dr. Hartwell Carver's Proposal to Build a Railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean" CPRR.org
- ^ "Reports of Explorations and Surveys, to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, made under the direction of the Secretary of War, in 1853-4." 12 Volumes. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1855–61
- ^ Woodward, C. Vann "Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction". Oxford: Oxford University Press (1991) p. 92
- ^ "Report of the Select Committee on the Pacific Railroad and Telegraph" US House of Representatives, 34th Congress, 1st Session, No. 358. August 16, 1856.
- ^ Zelizer, Julian E. (Ed) "The American Congress: The Building of Democracy". Kerr, K. Austin, Chapter 17: Railroad Policy (pp. 286–297). New York: Houghton Mifflin Co. (2004). p. 288
- ^ Gadsden Purchase, 1853–1854 U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian.
- ^ Whitney, Asa "A project for a railroad to the Pacific". New York: George W. Wood (1849) p. 55
- ^ "PBS American Experience – Transcontinental Railroad – Whitney Biography". WGBH. Archived from the original on December 6, 2019.
- ^ Markham, Edwin "The Romance of the 'C.P.' " SUCCESS (magazine). New York: The Success Company, Vol. VI, Number 106, March, 1903. pp. 127–130
- ^ a b c d e "A Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California: Illustrated. Containing a History of This Important Section of the Pacific Coast from the Earliest Period of Its Occupancyand Biographical Mention of Many of Its Most Eminent Pioneers and Also of Prominent Citizens of Today". Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company. (1891) pp. 214–221
- ^ Lindars, Dom. Manuscript, The Ditches of Nevada City, Chapter 24, Stories of Fire and Ice, anticipated publication date: Spring 2023.
- ^ "Railroad Route Discovered," The Nevada Journal, November 9, 1860, p. 2, Nevada City, California.
- ^ Gorman, Richard. "An Early Nevada City Odd Fellow," October, 2017. https://www.nevadacityoddfellows.com/history/charlesmarsh/. Retrieved September 13, 2022.
- ^ Comstock, David Allan. "Charles Marsh: Our Neglected Pioneer-Genius," Nevada County Historical Society Bulletin, pp. 9-11, 14-15, Volume 50, No. 2, April 1996, and papers compiled by David Comstock, Searls Historical Library, Nevada City, California.
- ^ "Henness Pass Turnpike Co.," Daily National Democrat, p. 3, March 22, 1860, Marysville, California.
- ^ "Another Pioneer Gone," San Francisco Chronicle, p. 3, April 29, 1876, San Francisco, California.
- ^ King, R. Joe. "Nevada Survey Maps," Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum website. http://cprr.org/Museum/Maps/Nevada_Survey_Maps/. Retrieved September 13, 2022.
- ^ Wheat, Carl I. "A Sketch of the Life of Theodore D. Judah," California Historical Society Quarterly, p. 250, Volume IV, No. 3, September 1925.
- ^ Central Pacific Railroad, Articles of Association, California State Archives, Sacramento, California.
- ^ "Thomas Clark Durant - American Experience - Official Site - PBS". PBS.org. PBS. Archived from the original on August 27, 2019. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
Thomas Durant was a born manipulator.
- ^ "Major General Grenville Mellen Dodge".
- ^ "An Act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes 12 Stat. 489, July 1, 1862.
- ^ Pacific Railroad Acts accessed March 25, 2013.
- ^ a b Klein, Maury. "Financing the Transcontinental Railroad". New York City, New York: The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Retrieved October 4, 2016.
- ^ Stewart, John J. "The Iron Trail to the Golden Spike" Chapter 7 "Utah's Role in the Pacific Railroad" p. 175, Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Co. (1969).
- ^ "PBS American Experience – Transcontinental Railroad – Durant Biography". PBS.
- ^ "In Memoriam, Theodore D. Judah, Died November 2, 1863".
- ^ a b c Cooper, Bruce C. Lewis Metzler Clement: A Pioneer of the Central Pacific Railroad The Central Pacific Photographic History Museum.
- ISBN 0-324-22636-5.
- ^ Ambrose, Stephen, 2000, p. 376.
- ^ Map of Land Grants to Railroads linked to archived version, page not available as of February 2023. Originally accessed 2009
- ^ The Silent Spikes: Chinese Laborers and the Construction of North American Railroads, comp. and ed. Huang Annian, trans. Zhang Juguo (n.p.: China Intercontinental Press, 2006), p. 36.
- ^ Miller, Daegan (2018). This Radical Land: A Natural History of American Dissent. The University of Chicago Press.
- ^ Haupt, Herman (1864). Military Bridges: With Suggestions for New Expedients and Constructions for Crossing Streams and Chasms; Including, Also, Designs for Trestle and Truss Bridges for Military Railroads, Adapted Especially to the Wants of the Service in the United States. Retrieved August 1, 2013 – via Google Books.
- ^ Workers of the Union Pacific Railroad Archived March 23, 2017, at the Wayback Machine accessed March 28, 2013.
- ISBN 9781503608290.
- ISBN 9781328618573.
- ^ (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022.
- ^ Reef, Catherine "Working in America", p. 79. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2007.
- ^ "Picture of black workers on the CPR". Retrieved May 1, 2013.
- ^ Harris, Robert L., "THE PACIFIC RAILROAD – UNOPEN". The Overland Monthly, September 1869. pp. 244–252.
- ^ Central Pacific Railroad: Statement Made to the President of the United States, and Secretary of the Interior, of the Progress of the Work. Sacramento: H.S. Crocker & Company. October 10, 1865. p. 12.
- ISBN 9780393061260.
Chinese labor proved to be Central Pacific's salvation.
- ^ Daspit, Tom. "The Days They Changed the Gauge". Retrieved October 10, 2016.
- ^ Smithsonian's NMAH - Anniversary Exhibition Press Release 1999 "North American Standard Time introduced 1883" Archived 2011-06-30 at the Wayback Machine - Retrieved March 4
- ^ "Transcontinental Telegraph Line (U.S.)". Engineering and Technology History Wiki. November 23, 2017. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
- ^ Union Pacific Timeline accessed March 8, 2013.
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- ISBN 1452908737.
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- ^ Gankplank discovery accessed March 5, 2013.
- Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad, by David Haward Bain.
- ^ "UP construction". Archived from the original on April 8, 2012. Retrieved August 3, 2013.
- ISBN 978-0-7432-0317-3.
- ^ Stewart, George R. (1970) American Place-Names, p. 401, New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
- ^ a b Mormon workers on Union Pacific transcontinental tracks [1] accessed August 2, 2013.
- ^ Construction on Echo and Weber Canyon [2] accessed March 15, 2013.
- ^ F.V. Hayden & Daniel M. Davis. "Sun Pictures of Rocky Mountain Scenery, Photographic Collection". Utah State University Special Collections and Archives. Archived from the original on January 12, 2007. Retrieved January 6, 2007.
- ^ Deseret News March 17, 1869, page 1
- ^ "Union Pacific Map". Central Pacific Railroad Museum. Retrieved February 5, 2009.
- ^ Promontory Summit-NPS [3] accessed February 26, 2013.
- ^ Cape Horn CPRR [4] accessed March 10, 2013.
- ^ Dutch Flat and Donner Lake Wagon Road [5] Accessed July 23, 2009.
- ^ California Powder Works [6] accessed March 19, 2013.
- ^ Parks, Shoshi (January 12, 2022). "The Quest to Protect California's Transcontinental Railroad Tunnels". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved February 12, 2022.
- ^ The Use of Black Powder and Nitroglycerine on the transcontinental railroad [7] accessed March 19, 2013.
- ^ California Newspapers, 1865–66 [8] accessed March 19, 2013.
- ^ Norden at 39°19′03″N 120°21′30″W / 39.3176°N 120.3584°W
- ^ Shed 47 visible at 39°18′42″N 120°16′08″W / 39.3116°N 120.269°W
- ^ East end of Tunnel 41 at 39°18′04″N 120°18′01″W / 39.301°N 120.3003°W with former track 1 passing above.
- ^ Cooper, Bruce C. (August 2003). "Summit Tunnel & Donner Pass". CPRR.org.
- ^ Constructing the Central Pacific Railroad [9] accessed March 13, 2013.
- ^ "Central Pacific Railroad Map". Central Pacific Railroad Museum. Retrieved February 5, 2009.
- ^ "PBS – General Article: Workers of the Central Pacific Railroad". PBS. Archived from the original on March 18, 2017. Retrieved August 27, 2017.
- LCCN 2004015281.
Under the terms of the contract the Mormons were to do all the grading, tunneling, and bridge masonry on the U. P. line for the 150-odd miles from the head of Echo Canyon through Weber Canyon to the shores of the Great Salt Lake.
- ^ Allen, James B.; Glen M. Leonard (1976). The Story of the Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company. pp. 328–329.
- ^ Ambrose, p. 148.
- ^ Griswold, Wesley (1962). A Work of Giants. New York: McGraw-Hill. pp. 109–111.
- ^ a b "Alta California (San Francisco)". November 9, 1868.
- ^ Kraus. High Road to Promontory. p. 110.
- ^ Howard, Robert West (1962). The Great Iron Trail: The Story of the First Transcontinental Railroad. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. p. 231.
- ^ a b Dobie, Charles Caldwell (1936). San Francisco's Chinatown; Chapter IV: Railroad Building. New York: Appleton-Century Co. pp. 71–72.
- ^ Ambrose, Nothing Like It in the World, pp. 160, 201.
- ^ Howard, Robert The Great Iron Trail. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1962. pg. 222
- ^ Howard, Robert The Great Iron Trail. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1962. pg.222
- ^ a b Tzu-Kuei, "Chinese Workers and the First Transcontinental Railroad of the United States of America", p. 128.
- ^ John R. Gillis, "TUNNELS OF THE PACIFIC RAILROAD." Van Nostrand's Eclectic Engineering Magazine, January 5, 1870, pp. 418–423.
- ^ "James Harvey Strobridge". freepages.rootsweb.com. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
- ^ Galloway, C.E., John Debo The First Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Simmons-Boardman, (1950). Ch. 7.
- ^ Cooper, Bruce C. "CPRR Summit Tunnel (#6), Tunnels #7 & #8, Snowsheds, "Chinese" Walls, Donner Trail, and Dutch Flat Donner - Lake Wagon Road at Donner Pass" CPRR.org
- ^ "Period construction images of snowsheds at Cisco and Donner Summit" CPRR.org
- ^ "People & Events: Thomas Clark Durant (1820–1885)". American Experience: Transcontinental Railroad. PBS. 2003. Retrieved May 10, 2007.
- ^ a b c d e f King, Gilbert (July 17, 2012). "Where the Buffalo No Longer Roamed: The Transcontinental Railroad connected East and West—and accelerated the destruction of what had been in the center of North America". Smithsonian.com. Retrieved April 10, 2012.
- ^ "See the "Lost" Golden Spike at the Museum" Archived July 24, 2012, at archive.today California State Railroad Museum.
- ^ Central Pacific snow sheds [10] accessed January 28, 2009.
- ^ "Omaha". The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer. Wheeling, West Virginia. March 26, 1872. p. 1. Retrieved January 5, 2017.
- ^ United States National Park Service (September 28, 2002). "Promontory After May 10, 1869". Archived from the original on June 10, 2007. Retrieved May 10, 2007.
- ^ "The Transcontinental Railroad's Impact on World War II | Trains Magazine". Trains. March 5, 2019. Archived from the original on May 18, 2021.
- ^ "People & Events: Oakes Ames (1804–1873) – American Experience Transcontinental Railroad". PBS.
- ISBN 978-1-893122-46-8.
- ^ Williams, Carter (March 19, 2019). "Golden Spike becomes Utah's first national historic park. Here's what that means". KSL TV. Salt Lake City. Retrieved January 31, 2021.
- ^ Sources:
- Pentrex, 1997.
- Golden Spike. "Everlasting Steam: The Story of Jupiter and No. 119" (PDF). nps.gov. Brigham City, Utah: National Park Service. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 5, 2015.
- "Golden Spike Pictures". Archived from the original on September 30, 2011.
- Best, Gerald M (1980). Promontory's Locomotives. Golden West Books. pp. 12–43. ISBN 9780870950827.
- "Central Pacific Jupiter and Union Pacific 119 at Promontory, Utah, June 8, 2009". Archived from the original on December 11, 2021 – via YouTube.
- Dowty, Robert R. (1994). Rebirth of the Jupiter and the 119: Building the Replica Locomotives at Golden Spike. Western National Parks Association. pp. 5–46. ISBN 978-1-877856-43-3.
- Goran, David (September 27, 2016). "Steam locomotives Jupiter and Union Pacific No. 119: Striking symbols of one of the most important periods in American history". The Vintage News.
They were painted and lettered by Disney employees and are incredibly accurate replicas of the originals. (numerous photographs of engines)
- ^ "Eureka County, Yucca Mountain Existing Transportation Corridor Study". Eureka County – Yucca Mountain Project. 2005. Retrieved May 8, 2010.
- Oxford Worlds Classics, 1995, Introduction.
Further reading
External videos | |
---|---|
Booknotes interview with David Haward Bain on Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad, March 5, 2000, C-SPAN |
- Allen, James B.; Glen M. Leonard (1976). The Story of the Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company.
- ISBN 0-684-84609-8.
- Bain, David Haward (1999). Empire Express; Building the first Transcontinental Railroad. Viking Penguin. ISBN 0-670-80889-X.
- ISBN 0-8310-7034-X.
- Chang, Gordon H. (2019). Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
- Cooper, Bruce C., "Riding the Transcontinental Rails: Overland Travel on the Pacific Railroad 1865–1881" (2005), Polyglot Press, Philadelphia ISBN 1-4115-9993-4
- Cooper, Bruce Clement (Ed), "The Classic Western American Railroad Routes". New York: Chartwell Books/Worth Press, 2010. ISBN 0-7858-2573-8; BINC: 3099794.
- Duran, Xavier, "The First U.S. Transcontinental Railroad: Expected Profits and Government Intervention," Journal of Economic History, 73 (March 2013), 177–200.
- Lee, Willis T.; Ralph W. Stone & Hoyt S. Gale (1916). Guidebook of the Western United States, Part B. The Overland Route. USGS Bulletin 612. Archived from the original on May 5, 2012.
- Sandler, Martin W. (2015). Iron Rails, Iron Men, and the race to link the nation: The story of the transcontinental railroad. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press. ISBN 978-0-7636-6527-2.
- White, Richard. Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (2010)
- Willumson, Glenn. Iron Muse: Photographing the Transcontinental Railroad (University of California Press; 2013) 242 pages; studies the production, distribution, and publication of images of the railroad in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
External links
For maps and railroad pictures of this era shortly after the advent of photography see:
- Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum
- 1871 CPRR & UPRR Overland Railroad Map "Map of the Central Pacific Railroad and its Connections" published in the California Mail Bag San Francisco News Letter and California Advertiser, Vol. 1, No. 4, Oct–Nov. 1871. accessed May 1, 2013.
- Union Pacific Railroad picture Museum Excursion to the 100th Meridian – 1866 accessed March 1, 2013.
- The Pacific Tourist Williams, Henry T.; published by Adams & Bishop, New York, 1881 ed. Gives insights to travel in the late 1880s on the transcontinental railroad.
- "I Hear the Locomotives: The Impact of the Transcontinental Railroad"
- Golden Spike National Historical Park in Utah
- Union Pacific Railroad History
- The Transcontinental Railroad
- Pacific Railway Act and related resources at the Library of Congress
- Chinese-American Contribution to transcontinental railroad
- Linda Hall Library's Transcontinental Railroad educational site with free, full-text access to 19th century American railroad periodicals
- Newspaper articles and clippings about the Transcontinental Railroad at Newspapers.com
- "Transcontinental Railroad", article by Adam Burns in "Railroads In America" site
- Maps
- Route map at the Library of Congress
- Map of Union Pacific Railroad with Dates
- Abandoned route of the transcontinental railroad in Utah (with map)
- Geography of Chinese Workers Building the Transcontinental Railroad; "A virtual reconstruction of the key historic sites" — Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project; Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA) at Stanford University