A Brief History of Building the Transcontinental Railroad

Today, May 10th, is the 150th anniversary for the completion of the world's first trancontinental railroad at Promontory Point, Utah. It had an unlikely beginning.

He was called ' Crazy Judah.' A civil engineer by profession, Theodore Judah had an obsession. In the wake of the gold strike at Sutter's Mill in 1848, and statehood for California in 1850, Judah was instrumental in building the first railroad in California, but he had a bigger vision. He wanted a way to connect the steam train lines on the West Coast with the East Coast. His proposed route would blast, cut, and embed its way through the vast plains, flooded rivers, and snow drifted mountain passes of Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California. But 150 years ago, all that was available to accomplish any of this were black powder, hand tools, manpower, and animals. 'Crazy Judah' died in 1863 before seeing a single rail laid, but his dogged detetmination to link this continent from sea to sea by a continuous railroad inspired others - including President Lincoln - to complete that monumental task.


From the Linda Hall Library at the University of Missouri - Kansas City: "The race between the two companies commenced when the Union Pacific finally began to lay tracks at Omaha, Nebraska, in July 1865. (A bridge over the Missouri River would be built later to join Omaha to Council Bluffs, the official eastern terminus.)  Durant hired Grenville Dodge as chief engineer and General Jack Casement as construction boss. With tens of thousands of Civil War veterans out of work, hiring for the Union Pacific was easy.  The men, mostly Irishmen, worked hard and well, despite going on strike occasionally when Durant withheld their pay over petty labor disputes.

Finding workers was a more difficult task for the Central Pacific. Laborers, mainly Irish immigrants, were hired in New York and Boston and shipped out west at great expense.  But many of them abandoned railroad work, lured by the Nevada silver mines. In desperation, Crocker tried to hire newly freed African Americans, immigrants from Mexico, and even petitioned Congress to send 5,000 Confederate Civil War prisoners, but to no avail.  Frustrated at the lack of manpower necessary to support the railroad, Crocker suggested to his work boss, James Strobridge, that they hire Chinese laborers. Although Strobridge was initially against the idea, feeling that the Chinese were too slight in stature for the demanding job, he agreed to hire 50 men on a trial basis. After only one month, Strobridge grudgingly admitted that the Chinese were conscientious, sober, and hard workers.

Within three years, 80 percent of the Central Pacific workforce was made up of Chinese workers, and they proved to be essential to the task of laying the line through the Sierra Nevadas. Once believed to be too frail to perform arduous manual labor, the Chinese workers accomplished amazing and dangerous feats no other workers would or could do. They blasted tunnels through the solid granite -- sometimes progressing only a foot a day. They often lived in the tunnels as they worked their way through the solid granite, saving precious time and energy from entering and exiting the worksite each day. They were routinely lowered down sheer cliff faces in makeshift baskets on ropes where they drilled holes, filled them with explosives, lit the fuse and then were yanked up as fast as possible to avoid the blast.

While the Central Pacific fought punishing conditions moving eastward through mountains, across
ravines, and through blizzards, the Union Pacific faced resistance from the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes who were seeing their homelands invaded and irrevocably changed.  The railroad workers were armed and oftentimes protected by U.S. Calvary and friendly Pawnee Indians, but the workforce routinely faced Native American raiding parties that attacked surveyors and workers, stole livestock and equipment, and pulled up track and derailed locomotives.

Both railroad companies battled against their respective obstacles to lay the most miles of track,

therefore gaining the most land and money. Although the Central Pacific had a two-year head start over the Union Pacific, the rough terrain of the Sierra Nevadas limited their construction to only 100 miles by the end of 1867. But once through the Sierras, the Central Pacific rail lines moved at tremendous speed, crossing Nevada and reaching the Utah border in 1868. From the east, the Union Pacific completed its line through Wyoming and was moving at an equal tempo from the east.

For the rest of the story click here.

For those who prefer a video presentation, there is a fairly decent thumbnail sketch (20 minutes) of the history of the making of  the first transcontinental railroad.

https://youtu.be/AxPnYeinIUo