When was the first US transcontinental railroad completed?
Transcontinental railroad
A series of transcontinental railroads built over the last third of the 19th century created a nationwide transportation network that united the country by rail. The first of these, the "Pacific Railroad", was built by the Central Pacific Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad to link the San Francisco Bay at Alameda, California, with the nation's existing eastern railroad network at Council Bluffs, Iowa/Omaha, Nebraska, thereby creating the world's first transcontinental railroad when it opened in 1869. Its construction was made possible by the US government under Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862, 1864, and 1867.
American frontier
Six transcontinental railroads were built in the Gilded Age (plus two in Canada); they opened up the West to farmers and ranchers. From north to south they were the Northern Pacific, Milwaukee Road, and Great Northern along the Canada–US border; the Union Pacific/Central Pacific in the middle, and to the south the Santa Fe, and the Southern Pacific. All but the Great Northern of James J. Hill relied on land grants. The financial stories were often complex. For example, the Northern Pacific received its major land grant in 1864. Financier Jay Cooke (1821–1905) was in charge until 1873, when he went bankrupt. Federal courts, however, kept bankrupt railroads in operation. In 1881 Henry Villard (1835–1900) took over and finally completed the line to Seattle. But the line went bankrupt in the Panic of 1893 and Hill took it over. He then merged several lines with financing from J.P. Morgan, but President Theodore Roosevelt broke them up in 1904.
History of Wells Fargo
The Wells Fargo stagecoach empire was short lived. Although the Central Pacific Railroad, already operating over the Sierra Mountains to Reno, Nevada, carried Wells Fargo's express, the company did not have an exclusive contract. Moreover, the Union Pacific Railroad was encroaching on the territory served by Wells Fargo stagelines. Ashbel H. Barney, Danforth Barney's brother and cofounder of United States Express Company, replaced McLane as president in 1869. The First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in that year, causing the stage business to dwindle and Wells Fargo's stock to fall.
Mormon Trail
The trail was used for more than 20 years, until the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869. Among the emigrants were the Mormon handcart pioneers of 1856–60. Two of the handcart companies, led by James G. Willie and Edward Martin, met disaster on the trail when they departed late and were caught by heavy snowstorms in Wyoming.
First Transcontinental Railroad
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 Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge was completed.
Gould transcontinental system
The Gould transcontinental system was a system of railroads assembled by George Jay Gould I and the Fuller Syndicate in the early 1900s. This was Gould's attempt to fulfill a goal of his late father, financier Jay Gould. Due to financial troubles following the Panic of 1907, the system was never completed as a fully transcontinental line.
Crédit Mobilier of America scandal
The Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1867, which came to public attention in 1872, involved the Union Pacific Rail Road and the Crédit Mobilier of America construction company in the building of the eastern portion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. The scandal was in two parts. The construction company charged the railroad far higher rates than usual, and cash and $9 million in discounted stock were given as bribes to 15 powerful Washington politicians, including the Vice-President, the Secretary of the Treasury, four senators, and the Speaker and other members of the House.
First Transcontinental Railroad
The Platte River was too shallow and meandering to provide river transport, but the Platte river valley headed west and sloped up gradually at about per , often allowing to lay a mile (1.6 km) of track a day or more in 1866 as the Union Pacific finally started moving rapidly west. Building bridges to cross creeks and rivers was the main source of delays. Near where the Platte River splits into the North Platte River and South Platte River, the railroad bridged the North Platte River over a bridge (nicknamed ½ mile bridge). It was built across the shallow but wide North Platte resting on piles driven by steam pile drivers. Here they built the "railroad" town of North Platte, Nebraska in December 1866 after completing about of track that year. In late 1866, former Major General Grenville M. Dodge was appointed Chief Engineer on the Union Pacific, but hard working General "Jack" Casement continued to work as chief construction "boss" and his brother Daniel Casement continued as financial officer.
First Transcontinental Railroad
The Central Pacific got a direct route to San Francisco when it was merged with the Southern Pacific Railroad to create the Southern Pacific Company in 1885. The Union Pacific initially took over the Southern Pacific in 1901 but was forced by the U.S. Supreme Court to divest it because of monopoly concerns. The two railroads would once again unite in 1996 when the Southern Pacific was sold to the Union Pacific.
Ames Monument
The audacity of building a transcontinental railroad in the 1860s was "today's equivalent of the mission to Mars: Big, expensive and impossible," according to University of Wyoming historian Phil Roberts. President Abraham Lincoln reportedly told Oakes Ames that if he could get the transcontinental railroad built then he would be "the most remembered man of the century." Lincoln personally recruited Oakes after progress by and financial support for Credit Mobilier of America, the construction company charged with building the railroad, ground to a halt. The Ames brothers succeeded where others failed and completed the transcontinental railway. However, in 1873 charges of financial fraud were leveled at Oakes, tarnishing his and the Union Pacific Railroad Company's reputation.
First Transcontinental Railroad
The Union Pacific would not connect Omaha to Council Bluffs until completing the Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge in 1872.
Oregon Trail
After the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869, telegraph lines usually followed the railroad tracks as the required relay stations and telegraph lines were much easier to maintain alongside the tracks. Telegraph lines to unpopulated areas were largely abandoned.
American frontier
In 1861 Congress passed the Land-Grant Telegraph Act which financed the construction of Western Union's transcontinental telegraph lines. Hiram Sibley, Western Union's head, negotiated exclusive agreements with railroads to run telegraph lines along their right-of-way. Eight years before the transcontinental railroad opened, the First Transcontinental Telegraph linked Omaha, Nebraska and San Francisco (and points in-between) on October 24, 1861. The Pony Express ended in just 18 months because it could not compete with the telegraph.
GE steam turbine locomotives
The locomotives were in operation for six months, among the shortest operational careers in recorded railroading. After being completed in December 1938, they were first tested by GE at its Erie, Pennsylvania facility, then road tested on New York Central tracks between January and March 1939. They were then delivered to UP in April 1939 at Omaha, Nebraska, in time for the 70th anniversary of the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in May, and given road numbers 1 and 2. According to UP historians William Kratville and Harold Ranks, the new locomotives were hoped to be the "replacement to steam" and the "successor of diesels". After completing test runs, UP put the locomotives on public display with tour trains, a national tour, and an inspection by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. They were present at the grand opening of the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal and were on display in Omaha for the world premier of Cecil B. DeMille's film "Union Pacific" on April 28.
Great Northern Railway (U.S.)
The Great Northern was the only privately funded and successfully built transcontinental railroad in U.S. history. No federal subsidies were used during its construction, unlike all other transcontinental railroads.
First Transcontinental Railroad
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.
Robert Edmund Strahorn
After the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, the Union Pacific Railroad began planning a direct connection to the Pacific Northwest. In Fall 1877, the Union Pacific was reaching slowly out across the Western frontier to connect East with West. Jay Gould, President of the Union Pacific Railroad, was impressed with Strahorn's skills as a scout, a journalist and a publicist and hired him to create the Union Pacific Publicity Department. Strahorn's job was to promote migration by opening of the eyes of the East to the vast possibilities of the West, especially along the line of the Union Pacific. Strahorn was travel throughout the West and write newspaper articles, books and other materials about each of the western states and territories. He also was to scout and gather intelligence for business opportunities in railroads, mining, farming, tourism and the location of new communities. Strahorn's first assignment involved about four thousand miles of stage and horseback travel and writing a book of several hundred pages on the resources and attractions of all the country west of the Missouri. Following this were to be a flood of leaflets, maps, folders, and an eight-page monthly paper, some to be printed in various foreign languages, and later half a dozen other books on as many different territories and state in greater detail.
History of rail transportation in California
California's symbolic and tangible connection to the rest of the country was fused at Promontory Summit, Utah, as the "last spike" was driven to join the tracks of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads, thereby completing the First Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869 (before that time, only a few local rail lines operated in the State, the first being the Sacramento Valley Railroad). The 1,600 mile (2,575-kilometer) trip from Omaha, Nebraska, would now take mere days. The Wild West was quickly transformed from a lawless, agrarian frontier to what would become an urbanized, industrialized economic and political powerhouse. Of perhaps greater significance is the unbridled economic growth that was spurred on by the sheer diversity of opportunities available in the region.
Red Desert (Wyoming)
A westward-looking nation in 1869 united its eastern and western shores with the First Transcontinental Railroad, whose route traversed the Red Desert. University of Wyoming historian Phil Roberts described the notion of building a transcontinental railroad as "today's equivalent of the mission to Mars: Big, expensive and impossible". The preliminary survey for the railroad produced the first map of the Great Basin and Southern Wyoming, according to author Stephen E. Ambrose. The Red Desert's lack of water presented a problem for steam locomotives of the time. The Union Pacific Company found reliable water by drilling deep artesian wells in the desert. Some of these railroad wells, such as at Wamsutter continue to supply much needed water today for residents and the influx of oil and gas field workers who live in temporary housing or "man camps".
Panama City
One year before the start of the California Gold Rush, the Panama Railroad Company was formed, but the railroad did not begin full operation until 1855. Between 1848 and 1869, the year the first transcontinental railroad was completed in the United States, about 375,000 persons crossed the isthmus from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and 225,000 in the opposite direction. This traffic greatly increased the prosperity of the city during that period.
Collis Potter Huntington
In the late 1850s, Huntington and Hopkins joined forces with two other successful businessmen, Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker, to pursue the idea of creating a rail line that would connect America's east and west. In 1861, these four businessmen (sometimes referred to as The Big Four) pooled their resources and business acumen, and formed the Central Pacific Railroad company to create the western link of America's First Transcontinental Railroad. Of the four, he had a reputation for being the most ruthless in pursuing the railroad's business and the ouster of his partner, Stanford.
First Transcontinental Railroad
On June 18, 1868, the Central Pacific reached Reno, Nevada, after completing of railroad up and over the Sierras from Sacramento, California. By then the railroad had already been prebuilt down the Truckee River on the much flatter land from Reno to Wadsworth, Nevada, where they bridged the Truckee for the last time. From there, they struggled across a forty mile desert to the end of the Humboldt river at the Humboldt Sink. From the end of the Humboldt, they continued east over the Great Basin Desert bordering the Humboldt River to Wells, Nevada. One of the most troublesome problems found on this route along the Humboldt was at Palisade Canyon (near Carlin, Nevada), where for the line had to be built between the river and basalt cliffs. From Wells, Nevada to Promontory Summit, the Railroad left the Humboldt and proceeded across the Nevada and Utah desert. Water for the steam locomotives was provided by wells, springs, or pipelines to nearby water sources. Water was often pumped into the water tanks with windmills. Train fuel and water spots on the early trains with steam locomotives may have been as often as every . On one memorable occasion, not far from Promontory, the Central Pacific crews organized an army of workers and five train loads of construction material, and laid of track on a prepared rail bed in one day—-a record that still stands today. The Central Pacific and Union Pacific raced to get as much track laid as possible, and the Central Pacific laid about of track from Reno to Promontory Summit in the one year before the Last Spike was driven on May 10, 1869.
Transportation in Omaha
In 1863, ground was broke near Miller's Landing on the Missouri River for the First Transcontinental Railroad. Along with local financier Edward Creighton, George Francis Train was the promoter who was mostly responsible for the city landing the railroad. He was made rich from its convenient placement near land that he owned (near Deer Park. The Union Pacific Railroad has been headquartered in Omaha since its inception in 1867. In 1872, Union Pacific opened the first [railroad] bridge across the Missouri to Omaha.
First Transcontinental Railroad
The first transcontinental rail passengers arrived at the Pacific Railroad's original western terminus at the Alameda Mole 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. Service between San Francisco and Oakland Pier continued to be provided by ferry.
Henry W. Corbett
In 1869 Corbett was able to make his first transcontinental trip from the East to San Francisco. Prior to that he had crossed the Isthmus of Panama thirteen times on trips between the East and West. Corbett was later instrumental in getting the transcontinental railway connection built direct to Portland in 1883 (see below).
History of the Union Pacific Railroad
Construction was delayed until the American Civil War ended in 1865. Some 300 miles of main line track were built in 1865-66 over the flat prairies. The Rocky Mountains posed a much more dramatic challenge, but the crews had learned to work at a much faster pace with 240 miles built in 1867, and 555 in 1868-69. The two lines were joined together in Utah on May 10, 1869, hence creating the first transcontinental railroad in North America. Interstate 80, built in the 1950s, paralleled the UP main line. In 1870 the fare in coach from Omaha to San Francisco was $33.20 (sleeper cars cost extra.). The train stopped for meals at lunch rooms along the way. Passenger traffic for the long trip was light at first—2000 a month in the 1870s, growing to 10,000 a month in the 1880s.
North America
The First Transcontinental Railroad in the United States was built in the 1860s, linking the railroad network of the eastern US with California on the Pacific coast. Finished on 10 May 1869 at the famous golden spike event at Promontory Summit, Utah, it created a nationwide mechanized transportation network that revolutionized the population and economy of the American West, catalyzing the transition from the wagon trains of previous decades to a modern transportation system. Although an accomplishment, it achieved the status of first transcontinental railroad by connecting myriad eastern US railroads to the Pacific and was not the largest single railroad system in the world. The Canadian Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) had, by 1867, already accumulated more than of track by connecting Ontario with the Canadian Atlantic provinces west as far as Port Huron, Michigan, through Sarnia, Ontario.
California Trail
The California Trail was heavily used from 1845 until several years after the end of the American Civil War; in 1869 several rugged wagon routes were established across the Carson Range and Sierra Nevada mountains to different parts of northern California. After about 1848 the most popular route was the Carson Route which, while rugged, was still easier than most others and entered California in the middle of the gold fields. The trail was heavily used in the summers until the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 by the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads. Trail traffic rapidly fell off as the cross-country trip was much quicker and easier by train—about seven days. The economy class fare across the western United States of about $69 was affordable by most California-bound travelers.
Kansas Pacific Railway
The Kansas Pacific Railway (KP) was a historic railroad company that operated in the western United States in the late 19th century. It was a federally chartered railroad, backed with government land grants. At a time when the first transcontinental railroad was being constructed by the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific, it tried and failed to join the transcontinental ranks. It was originally the "Union Pacific, Eastern Division", although it was completely independent. The Pennsylvania railroad, working with Missouri financiers, designed it as a feeder line to the transcontinental system. The owners lobbied heavily in Washington for money to build a railroad from Kansas City to Colorado, and then to California. It failed to get funding to go west of Colorado. It operated many of the first long-distance lines in the state of Kansas in the 1870s, extending the national railway network westward across that state and into Colorado. Its main line furnished a principal transportation route that opened up settlement of the central Great Plains, and its link from Kansas City to Denver provided the last link in the coast-to-coast railway network in 1870. The railroad was consolidated with the Union Pacific in 1880, and its mainline continues to be an integral part of the Union Pacific network today.
Northern Pacific Railroad Completion Site, 1883
The Northern Pacific Railway which at the time was owned by James J. Hill, began building a transcontinental railroad route across the northern United States from Minnesota to the Pacific Coast in 1870. Crews built from both the eastern and western ends, progressing towards a yet undetermined meeting point somewhere in between. The two crews finally met near Independence Creek in Western Montana on August 22, 1883, which is near Gold Creek where gold was first discovered in Montana. At this point the track was connected, completing the transcontinental line; however, the "golden spike" completion ceremony would not occur until September 8, 1883. Four trains carried 300 guests from the east, including the Northern Pacific's president, Henry Villard, and visiting dignitaries from the United States, England, and Germany. A fifth train arrived from the west coast. The track which had been laid earlier was temporarily torn up to be relaid ceremoniously during the event. The final "golden spike" driven was not actually made of gold, but was the same spike that was driven to begin the construction of the Northern Pacific in Carlton, Minnesota, thirteen years earlier. The spike was driven by Villard, former U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant, and Henry C. Davis, who had helped drive the first spike.
Transportation in the United States
The rapid expansion of Railroads brought the canal boom to a sudden end, providing a quick, scheduled and year round mode of transportation that quickly spread to interconnect the states by the mid-19th century. During the industrialization of the United States after the Civil War, railroads, led by the transcontinental rail system in the 1860s, expanded quickly across the United States to serve industries and the growing cities. During the late 19th century, railroads often had built redundant routes to a competitor's road or built through sparsely populated regions that generated little traffic. These marginal rail routes survived the pricing pressures of competition, or the lack of revenue generated by low traffic, as long as railroads provided the only efficient economical way to move goods and people across the United States. In addition to the intercity passenger network running on Class I and II railroads, a large network of interurban (trolley or "street running") rail lines extended out from the cities and interchanged passenger and freight traffic with the railroads and also provided competition.
First Transcontinental Railroad
The Union Pacific reached the new railroad town of Cheyenne in December 1867, having laid about that year. They paused over the winter, preparing to push the track over Evans (Sherman's) pass. At , Evans/Sherman's pass is the highest point reached on the transcontinental railroad. About beyond Evans/Sherman's pass, the railroad had to build an extensive bridge over the Dale Creek canyon (41.103803, −105.454797, lat., long.). The Dale Creek Crossing was one of their more difficult railroad engineering challenges. Dale Creek Bridge was long and above Dale Creek. The bridge components were pre-built of timber in Chicago, Illinois and then shipped on rail cars to Dale Creek for assembly. The eastern and western approaches to the bridge site, near the highest elevation on the transcontinental railroad, required cutting through granite for nearly a mile on each side. The initial Dale Creek bridge had a train speed limit of per hour across the bridge. Beyond Dale Creek, railroad construction paused at what became the town of Laramie, Wyoming to build a bridge across the Laramie River.
First Transcontinental Railroad
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 Great Plains. This changed, however, as the work entered Indian-held lands. The Native Americans saw the railroad as a violation of their treaties with the United States. War parties began to raid the moving labor camps that followed the progress of the line. Union Pacific responded by increasing security and hiring marksmen to kill American Bison, which were both a physical threat to trains and the primary food source for many of the Plains Indians. The Native Americans then began killing laborers when they realized that the so-called "Iron Horse" threatened their existence. Security measures were further strengthened, and progress on the railroad continued.
First Transcontinental Railroad
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.
In total, the Central Pacific had eleven tunnel projects (Nos. 3 through 13) under construction in the Sierra from 1865–68, with seven tunnels located in a 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 U.S. 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 each per day.
First Transcontinental Railroad
Congress agreed to support the idea. Under the direction of the Department of War, the Pacific Railroad Surveys were conducted from 1853 through 1855. These included an extensive series of expeditions of the American West seeking possible routes. A report on the explorations described alternative routes and included an immense amount of information about the American West, covering at least . It included the region's natural history and illustrations of reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals.
Great Basin
In 1869 the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed at Promontory Summit in the Great Basin. Around 1902, the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was constructed in the lower basin and Mojave Desert for to Las Vegas, Nevada.
Sacramento Railyards
The first railroad in Sacramento as well as California was the Sacramento Valley Railroad finished in 1856 and engineered by Theodore Judah. Judah's efforts to realize a transcontinental railroad was transferred to the power of "The Big Four" investors, who created the Central Pacific Railroad. The First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869, when Central Pacific's line joined Union Pacific's at Promontory Summit. Sacramento's terminus was the primary departure station for the railroad until 1883.
History of Utah
On May 10, 1869, the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed at Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake. The railroad brought increasing numbers of people into the state, and several influential businessmen made fortunes in the territory.
Transportation in Oregon
The history of rail in Oregon predates the transcontinental railroad in 1869.
William Tudor (1779–1830)
Tudor was indirectly involved in the first railroad in the United States, created to carry granite for the construction of the Bunker Hill Monument. William Ticknor, a well-known lawyer and antiquarian, first suggested the memorial and an interested group of men met for breakfast at the home of Colonel Thomas Handasyd Perkins. Among them were Tudor, Daniel Webster, Professor George Ticknor, Doctor John C. Warren, William Sullivan, and George Blake. On May 10, 1823, the first public meeting was called. Work proceeded somewhat slowly, but on January 4, 1826, citizens petitioned the Massachusetts legislature to build a Railroad, which was then completed in short order and became operational on October 9, 1826 as the first railroad in the United States.
Comanche Crossing of the Kansas Pacific Railroad
The Comanche Crossing of the Kansas Pacific Railroad is a site where the last spike was driven into the first continuous transcontinental railroad on August 15, 1870. The site is east of Strasburg, Colorado, near railroad mile marker 602. A monument commemorating the event is located at Lyons Park in Strasburg.
Union Pacific Railroad
The line was constructed primarily by Irish labor who had learned their craft during the recent Civil War. Under the guidance of its dominant stockholder Dr. Thomas Clark Durant, the namesake of the city of Durant, Iowa, the first rails were laid in Omaha. The two lines were joined together at Promontory Summit, Utah, west of Ogden on May 10, 1869, hence creating the first transcontinental railroad in North America.Subsequently, the UP purchased three Mormon-built roads: the Utah Central Railroad extending south from Ogden to Salt Lake City, the Utah Southern Railroad extending south from Salt Lake City into the Utah Valley, and the Utah Northern Railroad extending north from Ogden into Idaho.
History of Panama (1821–1903)
In 1869 the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in the United States. This development reduced passenger and freight traffic across the isthmus and diminished the amount of gold and silver shipped east. During the height of the gold rush, however, from 1855 to 1858, only one-tenth of the ordinary commercial freight was destined for or originated in California. The balance concerned trade of the North Americans with Europe and Asia. The railroad company, because of its exceptionally high return on a capitalization that never exceeded US$7 million, paid a total of nearly US$38 million in dividends between 1853 and 1905. Panama received US$25,000 from Colombia's annuity and benefited from transient trade and some inflow of capital.
Weehawken Terminal
The route then operated sporadically for years, and became object of a legislative investigation in 1870. It was purchased by the New Jersey Midland Railway in 1871. From 1913 until the 1927 opening of the Holland Tunnel, it was a component of the Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental highway in the United States, which began at Times Square, crossed the river, and traveled up Hudson Palisades along Pershing Road. In addition to 42nd Street, boats also traveled to Cortland Street Ferry Depot in lower Manhattan. The "Weehawken" was the last ferry to the terminal on March 25, 1959 at 1:10 am, ending 259 years of continuous ferry service.
History of the Oregon Trail
After the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869 all the telegraph lines usually followed the railroad tracks as the required relay stations and telegraph lines were much easier to maintain alongside the tracks. Telegraph lines to unpopulated areas were largely abandoned.
Andrew J. Russell
Russell photographed construction of the UP Railroad in Wyoming and Utah Territories during 1868. During the winter he published "The Great West Illustrated", an album of 50 photographs. In 1869 he returned to Utah Territory to photograph the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869 at Promontory. Later that year he traveled to California to photograph locations on the Central Pacific Railroad, and returned to New York City at the end of 1869.
Morgan Jones (railroad builder)
In America he became foreman of a construction crew on the Union Pacific Railroad, with Grenville M. Dodge as his mentor. He was present for the driving of the "Golden Spike" joining the rails of the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869. In 1876 he was hired by Grenville Dodge, then at the Texas & Pacific Railway, to finish an extension project into Fort Worth. He brought the construction in on time, within a strict deadline from the state legislature, and was hailed as a local hero for the timely completion.
First Transcontinental Railroad
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. Together, they formed an association to solicit subscriptions from local merchants and businessmen to support their proposed railroad.
History of the Oregon Trail
The first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, providing faster, safer, and usually cheaper travel east and west (the journey took seven days and cost as little as $65). Some emigrants continued to use the trail well into the 1890s, and modern highways and railroads eventually paralleled large portions of the trail, including U.S. Highway 26, Interstate 84 in Oregon and Idaho and Interstate 80 in Nebraska. Contemporary interest in the overland trek has prompted the states and federal government to preserve landmarks on the trail including wagon ruts, buildings, and "registers" where emigrants carved their names. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries there have been a number of re-enactments of the trek with participants wearing period garments and traveling by wagon.
National Transcontinental Railway
The completion of construction of Canada's first transcontinental railway, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) on November 7, 1885, preceded a tremendous economic expansion and immigration boom in western Canada during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But the monopolistic policies of the CPR, coupled with its southerly routing (new scientific discoveries were pushing the northern boundary of cereal crops), led to increasing western discontent with the railway and federal transportation policies.
First Transcontinental Railroad
In 1852, Judah was chief engineer for the newly formed Sacramento Valley Railroad, the first railroad built west of the Mississippi River. Although the railroad later went bankrupt once the easy placer gold deposits around Placerville, California were depleted, Judah was convinced that a properly financed railroad could pass from Sacramento through the Sierra Nevada mountains to reach the Great Basin and hook up with rail lines coming from the East.
James Gadsden
Later Gadsden served as the president of the South Carolina Railroad company from 1840 to 1850. When first completed in 1833, the line was the longest railroad in the world under one management. As an engineer he directed the construction of the branch to Columbia, completed 1842, surveyed a proposed extension to the Ohio River, and helped promote the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, incorporated 1845 (completed in 1857, it was the first U. S. railroad link between the Atlantic and the Mississippi River, but long after Gadsden had turned his attention elsewhere). By 1846, Gadsden and his associates promoted the construction of a southern transcontinental railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. A late 1840s map shows this railroad would hypothetically have been by way of the southern route from Charleston through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas to El Paso, Texas, and then through Mexico to the coast, in what in a few years would be newly acquired American land, after the 1846-1848 war with Mexico.
First Transcontinental Railroad
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. The longest of four tunnels built in Weber Canyon was 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 (), 4 () and 5 () to continue work on the tracks west of the tunnels.
Golden Spike National Historic Site
It commemorates the completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad where the Central Pacific Railroad and the first Union Pacific Railroad met on May 10, 1869. The final joining of the rails spanning the continent was signified by the driving of the ceremonial Golden Spike.
First Transcontinental Railroad
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 United States presidential election, 1872, 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.
Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific legacy began in 1862 with the original company, called the Union Pacific Rail Road, which was part of the First Transcontinental Railroad project, later known as the Overland Route. The railroad would subsequently be reorganized thrice: as the Union Pacific Railway (which absorbed the original in 1880), as the Union Pacific "Railroad" (which absorbed the Union Pacific Railway in 1897), and finally as a renamed Southern Pacific Transportation Company (which merged with Union Pacific in 1998).
First Transcontinental Railroad
The tracks reached Ogden, Utah, on March 27, 1869, although finishing work would continue on the tracks, tunnels and bridges in Weber Canyon for over a year. From Ogden, the railroad went north of the Great Salt Lake to Brigham City and Corinne using Mormon workers, before finally connecting with the Central Pacific Railroad at Promontory Summit in Utah territory on May 10, 1869. Some Union Pacific officers declined to pay the Mormons all of the agreed upon construction costs of the work through Weber Canyon, and beyond, claiming Union Pacific poverty despite the millions they had extracted through the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal. Only partial payment was secured through court actions against Union Pacific.
Union Pacific Corporation
The first Union Pacific Railroad, pronounced "Union Pacific Rail Road" was incorporated on July 1, 1862, under an act of Congress entitled Pacific Railroad Act of 1862. The act was approved by President Abraham Lincoln, and it provided for the construction of railroads from the Missouri River to the Pacific as a war measure for the preservation of the Union. It was constructed westward from Council Bluffs, Iowa to meet the Central Pacific Railroad line, which was constructed eastward from San Francisco Bay. The combined Union Pacific-Central Pacific line became known as the First Transcontinental Railroad and Overland Route. The original UP was entangled in the Crédit Mobilier scandal, exposed in 1872. Later, the original UP was in financial troubles because of the financial crisis of 1873 but did not go into bankruptcy.
William Henry Aspinwall
Following the Steamship Company, Aspinwall then promoted a railway in Panama. The project, which began in May 1850 and was later known as the Panama Canal Railway, was the first transcontinental railroad in the Americas and was built to provide a shorter and more secure path between the United States' East and West Coasts. When completed in 1855, the line was designated as an "inter-oceanic" railroad crossing as it connected ports on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The tropical rain forest terrain and outbreak of malaria and cholera, rendered its five year construction, at a cost of $8,000,000, a considerable engineering challenge, and required more than seven thousand workers drawn from "every quarter of the globe."
History of rail transport in the United States
Likewise, railroads changed the style of transportation. For the common person in the early 1800s, transportation was often traveled by horse or stagecoach. The network of trails along which coaches navigated were riddled with ditches, potholes, and stones. This made travel fairly uncomfortable. Adding to injury, coaches were cramped with little leg room. Travel by train offered a new style. Locomotives proved themselves a smooth, headache free ride with plenty of room to move around. Some passenger trains offered meals in the spacious dining car followed by a good night sleep in the private sleeping quarters.
Railroad companies in the North and Midwest constructed networks that linked nearly every major city by 1860. In the heavily settled Corn Belt (from Ohio to Iowa), over 80 percent of farms were within of a railway. A large number of short lines were built, but thanks to a fast developing financial system based on Wall Street and oriented to railway securities, the majority were consolidated into 20 trunk lines by 1890. Most of these railroads made money and ones that didn't were soon bought up and incorporated in a larger system or "rationalized". Although the transcontinental railroads dominated the media, with the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 dramatically symbolizing the nation's unification after the divisiveness of the Civil War, most construction actually took place in the industrial Northeast and agricultural Midwest, and was designed to minimize shipping times and costs. The railroads in the South were repaired and expanded and then, after a lot of preparation, changed from a 5-foot gauge to standard gauge of 4 foot 8 ½ inches in two days in May 1886.
California Pacific Railroad
The first truly transcontinental railroad was through Stockton, over Altamont Pass and thence via Niles Canyon to the San Francisco Bay Area, a distance of . That line was constructed by Leland Stanford's Central Pacific Railroad subsidiary the Western Pacific Railroad (of 1862). The route over Altamont Pass was completed in 1869. (This railroad is unrelated to the Western Pacific Railroad (of 1916) that ran to Salt Lake City via the Feather River Canyon.)
Ames Monument
The Ames Monument is a large pyramid in Albany County, Wyoming, designed by Henry Hobson Richardson and dedicated to brothers Oakes Ames and Oliver Ames, Jr., Union Pacific Railroad financiers. The brothers garnered credit for connecting the nation by rail upon completion of the United States' First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869. Oakes, a U.S. representative to the United States Congress from Massachusetts, asserted near total control of its construction, whereas Oliver became president of the Union Pacific Railroad (1866 - 1871). In 1873 investigators implicated Oakes in fraud associated with financing of the railroad. Congress subsequently censured Oakes, who resigned in 1873. He died soon thereafter.
History of the United States (1789–1849)
Major events in the western movement of the U.S. population were the Homestead Act, a law by which, for a nominal price, a settler was given title to of land to farm; the opening of the Oregon Territory to settlement; the Texas Revolution; the opening of the Oregon Trail; the Mormon Emigration to Utah in 1846–47; the California Gold Rush of 1849; the Colorado Gold Rush of 1859; and the completion of the nation's First Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869.
George Francis Train
George Francis Train (March 24, 1829 – January 5, 1904) was an American entrepreneur who organized the clipper ship line that sailed around Cape Horn to San Francisco; he also organized the Union Pacific Railroad and the Credit Mobilier in the United States in 1864 to construct the eastern portion of the Transcontinental Railroad, and a horse tramway company in England while there during the American Civil War.
First Transcontinental Railroad
The railroad opened for through traffic on May 10, 1869 when CPRR President Leland Stanford ceremonially drove the gold "Last Spike" (later often referred to as the "Golden Spike") with a silver hammer at Promontory Summit. The coast-to-coast railroad connection revolutionized the settlement and economy of the American West. 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 and less expensive.
First Transcontinental Railroad
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 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, U.T., the San Joaquin River Bridge at Mossdale Crossing (near present-day Lathrop, California) was completed on September 8, 1869. As a result, the western part of the route was extended from Sacramento to the Alameda Terminal in Alameda, California, and shortly thereafter, to the Oakland Long Wharf at Oakland Point in Oakland, California, and on to San Jose, California. Train ferries transferred some railroad cars to and from the Oakland wharves and tracks to wharves and tracks in San Francisco. Before the CPRR was completed, developers were building other feeder railroads like the Virginia and Truckee Railroad to the Comstock Lode diggings in Virginia City, Nevada, and several different extensions in California and Nevada to reach other cities there. Some of their main cargo was the thousands of cords of firewood needed for the many steam engines and pumps, cooking stoves, heating stoves etc. in Comstock Lode towns and the tons of ice needed by the miners as they worked ever deeper into the "hot" Comstock Lode ore body. In the mines, temperatures could get above at the work face and a miner often used over of ice per shift. This new railroad connected to the Central Pacific near Reno, and went through Carson City, the new capital of Nevada.
Transcontinental railroad
The Central Pacific Railroad faced a labor shortage in the more sparsely settled West. It recruited Cantonese laborers in China, who did prodigious work building the line over and through the Sierra Nevada mountains and then across Nevada to their meeting in northern Utah.
George J. Gould attempted to assemble a truly transcontinental system in the 1900s. The line from San Francisco, California, to Toledo, Ohio, was completed in 1909, consisting of the Western Pacific Railway, Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, Missouri Pacific Railroad, and Wabash Railroad. Beyond Toledo, the planned route would have used the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad (1900), Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal Railway, Little Kanawha Railroad, West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh Railway, Western Maryland Railroad, and Philadelphia and Western Railway, but the Panic of 1907 strangled the plans before the Little Kanawha section in West Virginia could be finished. The Alphabet Route was completed in 1931, providing the portion of this line east of the Mississippi River. With the merging of the railroads, only the Union Pacific Railroad and the BNSF Railway remain to carry the entire route.
Golden spike
The golden spike (also known as The Last Spike) is the ceremonial 17.6-karat gold final spike driven by Leland Stanford to join the rails of the First Transcontinental Railroad across the United States connecting the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. The term "last spike" has been used to refer to one driven at the usually ceremonial completion of any new railroad construction projects, particularly those in which construction is undertaken from two disparate origins towards a meeting point. The spike is now displayed in the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University.
Railroads in Omaha
In 1863 ground was broken near Miller's Landing on the Missouri River for the First Transcontinental Railroad. Along with local financier Edward Creighton, George Francis Train was the promoter who was chiefly responsible for the city's landing the railroad. He was made rich by its location convenient to the land which he owned near Deer Park. Landing the railroad made the value of his property for development skyrocket. The Union Pacific Railroad has been headquartered in Omaha since its inception in 1867, starting with its fifty-year occupancy of the Herndon House in downtown. In 1872 Union Pacific opened the first bridge across the Missouri to Omaha. The historic Overland Route continues to run through the city.
Someo
The journey lasted several months because one had to circumnavigate South America or to disembark in Colón and cross the Isthmus of Panama. The length of the journey from New York City to San Francisco was greatly shortened when the First Transcontinental Railroad started to operate in 1869.
Cosmopolitan Railway
"Cosmopolitan Railway" was one of the earliest documents envisioning a land route to Alaska, a vision that would first be realized (though not in the form of a railroad) in 1942, with the completion of the crude original version of the Alaska Highway. The document also proposed a bridge to Asia across the Bering Strait, a concept that has been dubbed the Intercontinental Peace Bridge, which would have been, and still would be, an enormously important link between the Eurasian and African continents on the one hand and the North and South American continents on the other.
History of rail in Oregon
The history of rail in Oregon predates the transcontinental railroad in 1869.
History of rail transport in the United States
Railroads played a large role in the development of the United States from the industrial revolution in the North-east (1810–1850) to the settlement of the West (1850–1890). The American railroad mania began with the founding of the first passenger and freight line in the nation of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1827 and the "Laying of the First Stone" ceremonies and beginning of its long construction heading westward over the obstacles of the Appalachian Mountains eastern chain the following year of 1828, and flourished with continuous railway building projects for the next 45 years until the financial Panic of 1873 followed by a major economic depression bankrupted many companies and temporarily stymied and ended growth.
Maritime history of California
As steamships became available, regular paddle steamer service opened a major mail, passenger and high value cargo link between the two coasts of the United States. The first transcontinental railroad, the Panama Railroad, was finished in 1855 at a cost of about 5,000 lives and $8,000,000 and provided a major faster link with the East Coast and West Coast. Regardless of how the miners had originally got to California nearly all returned East via Panama—the easiest and fastest route. The returning miners and the returning gold were welcomed in the East and the mail and newspapers exchanged soon established strong east-west bonds. After it was completed in 1855 the ease of use of the Panama Railroad meant that the Panama Route carried most of the high value, time sensitive freight to and from California. Most female traffic went from east to west over the Panama Route which was the easiest and fasted route after about 1852. Women in the California Gold Rush were scarce but played a major role in settling California. Wives' and sweethearts' passage via Panama to California was normally paid for by miners or businessmen who had decided to stay in California. These women arriving in nearly every ship from Panama soon changed the character of women scarce California as they rapidly outnumbered the prostitutes who had initially flocked there.
Oregon Trail
The ultimate competitor arrived in 1869, the First Transcontinental Railroad, which cut travel time to about seven days at a low fare of about $60 (economy)
California Gold Rush
Within a few years after the end of the Gold Rush, in 1863, the groundbreaking ceremony for the western leg of the First Transcontinental Railroad was held in Sacramento. The line's completion, some six years later, financed in part with Gold Rush money, united California with the central and eastern United States. Travel that had taken weeks or even months could now be accomplished in days.
Gadsden Purchase
In 1846, James Gadsden, then president of the South Carolina Railroad, proposed building a transcontinental railroad linking the Atlantic at Charleston with the Pacific at San Diego. Federal and private surveys by Lt. John G. Parke and Andrew B Gray proved the feasibility of the southern transcontinental route, but sectional strife and the Civil War delayed construction of the proposed railroad. The Southern Pacific Railroad from Los Angeles reached Yuma, Arizona, in 1877, Tucson in March 1880, Deming, New Mexico in December 1880, and El Paso in May 1881, the first railroad across the Gadsden Purchase.
History of infrastructure
In the US, the 1826 Granite Railway in Massachusetts was the first commercial railroad to evolve through continuous operations into a common carrier. The Baltimore and Ohio, opened in 1830, was the first to evolve into a major system. In 1869, the symbolically important transcontinental railroad was completed in the US with the driving of a golden spike at Promontory, Utah.
History of rail transportation in California
While the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad would rightfully be remembered as a major milestone in America's history, it would also foster the birth of a railroad empire that would have a dominant influence over California's evolution for years to come. Despite all of the shortcomings, in the end the State reaped innumerable and unprecedented benefits from its associations with the railroad companies, which helped put California "on the map."
Northern California
The decades following the Gold Rush brought dramatic expansion to northern California, both in population and economically – particularly in agriculture. The completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, with its terminus in Sacramento, meant that northern California's agricultural produce (and some manufactured goods) could now be shipped economically to the rest of the United States. In return, immigrants from the rest of the United States (and Europe) could comfortably come to northern California. A network of railroads spread throughout northern California, and in 1887, a rail link was completed to the Pacific Northwest. Almost all of these railways came under the control of the Southern Pacific Railroad, headquartered in San Francisco, and San Francisco continued as a financial and cultural center.
First Transcontinental Railroad
The railroad tracks, spikes, telegraph wire, locomotives, railroad cars, supplies etc. were imported from the east on sailing ships that sailed the about and about 200 day trip around Cape Horn. Some freight was put on Clipper ships which could do the trip in about 120 days. Some passengers and high priority freight were shipped over the newly (1855) completed Panama Railroad across the Isthmus of Panama. Using paddle steamers to and from Panama, this short cut could be done in as little as 40 days. Supplies were normally offloaded at the Sacramento, California docks where the railroad started.
History of Panama
The world's first transcontinental railroad, the Panama Railway, was completed in 1855 across the Isthmus from Aspinwall/Colón to Panama City. The US used troops to suppress separatist uprisings and social disturbances on many occasions. The first conflict was known as the Watermelon War of 1856, where US soldiers mistreated locals, causing massive race riots that US Marines eventually put down.
Italian Americans
Beginning in 1863, Italian immigrants were one of the principal groups, along with the Irish, that built the Transcontinental Railroad west from Omaha, Nebraska.
Transcontinental Traverse
The first major transcontinental survey was the Transcontinental Arc of Triangulation, completed in 1896 along the 39th parallel north with coastal endpoints at Cape May, New Jersey, and Point Arena, California lighthouses. It established the Meades Ranch survey marker, also called the Geodetic Center of the United States.
Galena and Chicago Union Railroad
In 1862 the G&CU leased in perpetuity the Cedar Rapids and Missouri Railroad which was to be the first railroad to reach Council Bluffs, Iowa and the First Transcontinental Railroad. The G&CU consolidated with the Chicago and North Western Railway in 1864, which merged with the Union Pacific Railroad over a century later in 1996.
First Transcontinental Railroad
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.
History of rail transportation in California
The establishment of America's transcontinental rail lines securely linked California to the rest of the country, and the far-reaching transportation systems that grew out of them during the century that followed contributed to the state’s social, political, and economic development. When California was admitted as a state to the United States in 1850, and for nearly two decades thereafter, it was in many ways isolated, an outpost on the Pacific, until the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869.
First Transcontinental Railroad
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 the struggling Western Pacific Railroad (unrelated to the railroad of the same name that would later parallel its route) and resumed construction on it, which had halted in 1866 due to funding troubles. In November 1869, the Central Pacific finally connected Sacramento to the east side of San Francisco Bay by rail at Oakland, California, where freight and passengers completed their transcontinental link to the city by ferry.
Capitol Corridor
The First Transcontinental Railroad was completed to Oakland from the south in 1869. Following the completion of the California Pacific Railroad in 1879, most long-distance service of the Southern Pacific (SP) reached Oakland from the north. Long-distance service from the south ran to San Francisco via the Peninsula; some trains had Oakland sections. The Western Pacific Railroad (completed to Oakland in 1910) and Santa Fe Railroad (completed to Oakland in 1903 over the former California and Nevada Railroad) largely ran long-distance service with limited local stops. Commuter service around Oakland was largely provided by the electric interurban trains of the SP-owned East Bay Electric Lines (1911–1941) and Key System (1901-1958).
United States Senate Committee on the Pacific Railroad
This legislation formed the basis of the Pacific Railway Acts enacted in 1862, which granted a charter to the Union Pacific Railroad Company to construct the first transcontinental railroad in the United States and to provide federal support in the form of land grants and bond subsidies. The committee was made a standing committee on December 22, 1863 during the 38th United States Congress to oversee matters related to construction of the railroad. After construction was completed in 1869, the committee decreased in relevance and in 1873 when it was replaced by the Committee on Railroads.
Big Fill
The Big Fill was an engineering project on the First Transcontinental Railroad in the U.S. state of Utah. To avoid a costly tunnel through mountainous terrain east of Promontory Summit, Central Pacific engineers mapped an alternate route that still needed to span a deep ravine. In February 1869, the construction firm of Benson, Farr, & West began construction on a raised bed across the ravine. Over two months, 500 workers hauled more than 10,000 cubic yards of material to build the rail bed. At its extent, the fill extended for and up to a depth of .
First Transcontinental Railroad
Four northern California businessmen formed the Central Pacific Railroad: Leland Stanford, (1824–1893), President; Collis Potter Huntington, (1821–1900), Vice President; Mark Hopkins, (1813–1878), Treasurer; Charles Crocker, (1822–1888), Construction Supervisor. All became substantially wealthy from their association with the railroad.
Wahsatch, Utah
Wahsatch was established in 1868 as a railroad construction camp, the first of many such camps set up in Utah by the Union Pacific Railroad in the process of building the First Transcontinental Railroad. From 1868 to 1869 a population of hundreds dug the Echo tunnel through the Wasatch Mountains west of town. Wahsatch soon became a major supply station and railhead, with its own roundhouse, workshops, boarding houses, and warehouses. When the transcontinental railroad was finished in May 1869, a meal station for waiting passengers was constructed.
Northern Pacific Railway
The Northern Pacific Railway was a transcontinental railroad that operated across the northern tier of the western United States, from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest. It was approved by Congress in 1864 and given nearly of land grants, which it used to raise money in Europe for construction.
Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge
When the Union Pacific began heading west from Omaha in 1862 there were no railroads connecting to it from the east. After the Chicago and North Western Railway reached Council Bluffs in 1867, the Union Pacific for a while tried to run freight trains across the frozen river during the winter. The Union Pacific Transfer company maintained a ferry service from 1866 to 1872.
In 1869 the transcontinental railroad was completed. An 1871 report to stockholders has this description:
American frontier
In the 1850s, proposals to build a transcontinental failed because of Congressional disputes over slavery. With the secession of the Confederate states in 1861, the modernizers in the Republican party took over Congress and wanted a line to link to California. Private companies were to build and operate the line. Construction would be done by unskilled laborers who would live in temporary camps along the way. Immigrants from China and Ireland did most of the construction work. Theodore Judah, the chief engineer of the Central Pacific surveyed the route from San Francisco east. Judah's tireless lobbying efforts in Washington were largely responsible for the passage of the 1862 Pacific Railroad Act, which authorized construction of both the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific (which built west from Omaha). In 1862 four rich San Francisco merchants (Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Charles Crocker, and Mark Hopkins) took charge, with Crocker in charge of construction. The line was completed in May 1869. Coast-to-coast passenger travel in 8 days now replaced wagon trains or sea voyages that took 6 to 10 months and cost much more.
First Transcontinental Railroad
The Kansas Pacific became part of the Union Pacific in 1880.
Gilded Age
In 1869, the First Transcontinental Railroad—a combination of the Union Pacific from Omaha to Utah and the Central Pacific from Utah to California—opened up the far west mining and ranching regions. Travel from New York to San Francisco now took six days instead of six months.
Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad
Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad (P&CR) (1834) was one of the earliest commercial railroads in the United States, running from Philadelphia to Columbia, Pennsylvania, it was built by the Pennsylvania Canal Commission in lieu of a canal from Columbia to Philadelphia; in 1857 it became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and its trackage lives on today operated by Norfolk-Southern. The Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad's western terminus was located near the former ferry site known as Wright's Ferry, in the town once of that name, but now Columbia in Lancaster County. There the P&CR met with the Pennsylvania Canal—navigations and improvements on the Susquehanna River east bank approximately south of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Most of its right-of-way was obtained by the actions of the Pennsylvania Canal Commission which operated the railroad under the various enabling acts of the Pennsylvania legislature known as the Main Line of Public Works in support of a far sighted plan to link the whole state by canals. With an engineering study reporting back a finding that obtaining sufficient waters to flood the intended 80+ mile canal from Philadelphia to Columbia, the Canal Commission and legislature authorized the railway on the right of way intended for the canal.
In 1857 as one of the properties legally denoted as the Main Line of Public Works, with rapidly improving railroad technology driving rapid changes in capabilities, the Railroad was sold along with most of the Pennsylvania Canal system, to the young Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) which acquired properties of the Pennsylvania Canal Commission as far west as Pittsburgh and included the Allegheny Portage Railroad with the proviso that the Railroad had to link Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. At the time, the PRR had begun building its famous Horseshoe Curve cutting across several of the streams forming the gaps of the Allegheny. Hence, the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad became a key integral part of what grew to be the largest railroad in the world.
Sugar Bowl Ski Resort
The Central Pacific Railroad first began train services to Donner Pass in 1868 after the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad across the United States. A new tunnel constructed two-miles (3 km) through virtually solid granite, dubbed "The Big Hole tunnel", was later constructed through Mt. Judah in 1925, offering trains better protection from snow storms on the summit. These heavy snow storms and blizzards during the winters often made even train service difficult over the years through the pass, which for a period of time was known as the Overland Route.
David Rice Atchison
When the First Transcontinental Railroad was proposed in the 1850s, Atchison called for it to be built along the central route (from St. Louis through Missouri, Kansas, and Utah), rather than the southern route (from New Orleans through Texas and New Mexico). Naturally, his suggested route went through Atchison.