First transcontinental railroad

The first railroad transcontinental was built with the the United States between Sacramento (California) and Omaha (Nebraska), between 1863 and 1869. Construction officially finished the May 10th 1869, with Promontory Summit (Utah). 3 000 km of railways make it possible to connect the rail network of the east of the country to the Pacifique coast. They revolutionize the economic situation and demographic American power.

Authorized by the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 and strongly supported by the federal government, the project has existed for several years and Abraham Lincoln gives him a major impulse. Its construction is a long term job, which required a considerable human effort to cross the mountains, the canyons and the Grandes Plains. The two companies which created it were the Union Pacific Railroad and the Exchange Pacific Railroad.

Beginnings

Context

See the detailed article History of the United States of 1776 to 1865
Between 1841 and 1867,350 000 Americans borrow the tracks to join the West of the country. They then use covered carriages and thousands die in way.
the first American railroad is created on the east coast: in 1827 is brought into service Baltimore & Ohio, first railway line of the United States.
the discovery of gold causes a rush towards the Pacific Ocean of the Americans and Europeans who use the boat by circumventing the Cape Horn. The crossing lasts several months and it is necessary to wait until 1914 to benefit from the opening of the Panama Canal.
In 1850, California becomes a state of the United States. In 1867, it is the turn of Nevada and Nebraska. Between the two the territories extend from Utah, the Colorado and Wyoming, which did not enter the union. They are then still wild regions, traversed by the Amerindians.
Between 1861 and 1865, the American Civil War opposes the north and the south of the country and threat the future of the young nation. President Abraham Lincoln asks the best engineers to develop a project of a railway line crossing the continent of North America of is in west.
the intended proclamation in the years 1840 pushes with the control of the territories of the West.

Genesis of the project

Since the Forwarding Lewis and Clark at the beginning of the 19th century, the Americans seek to penetrate towards the west of the continent. The idea of a rail link is essential as from the years 1830, but average the techniques and financial are lacking.

The merchant Asa Whitney (1797-1872) is the first to inquire into the feasibility of transcontinental in the United States. In June 1845, in company of eight men, it counts the available resources (stone, wood), evaluates the number of bridges and tunnels necessary. It makes the promotion of the project near financial potentials and the politicians. It presents charts and reports/ratios to the Congrès. But its efforts are called into question by the beginning of the américano-Mexican Guerre.

It is engineer Theodore Judah who takes again on his account the project. He works on behalf of Sacramento Valley Railroad and it is convinced that a railway line must be able to cross the Nevada Sierra towards the east. In 1856, it goes to Washington DC and tries to convince the political officials of bienfondé of its project. It is selected to chair the Pacific Railroad Convention which is held in San Francisco in September 1859. It turns over in the federal capital little time afterwards; it obtains an office and is heard by the president James Buchanan. A bill is proposed by Samuel Curtis in February 1860: it envisages the methods of financing and the attribution of the grounds necessary. But the decision is deferred when the civil war bursts.

From return in California, Judah spends its time seeking a road to cross the mountain. It receives a letter of a minor, Daniel Strong, who describes a possible access road for the railroad. The two men join to seek a financing near the Californian business men. A prosperous merchant of Sacramento, Huntington Parcel, hears his proposal and decides to launch out in the adventure, in partnership with three other contractors of the area.

In spring 1862, the law on Pacific Railroad is adopted by the Congress. President Abraham Lincoln promulgates it on July 1st. It allots the construction of the railroad to two railway companies: the Pacific Exchange for the Western section from Sacramento and the Union Pacific for the Eastern section since Omaha. This last must follow the valley of the Platte River, an affluent of the Missouri. It obliges each company to pose 60 km each year. Each way is subsidized with height of 9,94 dollars per meter (16 000 dollars per mile) on flat ground, 29,83 dollars per meter (48 000 dollars per mile) in the mountain.

A challenge taken up by four Californian contractors

In 1863, Sacramento counts approximately 13 000 inhabitants and the west is deprived of all indutrial resource of great width. All the hardware requirement comes from the east by boat. But the four men (Hopkins Mark, Parcel P. Huntington, Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker) are decided to disenclose their area. The building site begins the January 8th 1863 by the first blow from shovel of Leland Stanford. Charles Crocker (1822 - 1888) is selected as chief of work. He must build 60 kilometers of ways to obtain a federal financing. But the task is difficult because it is necessary to cross the chain of the Sierra Nevada which culminates with more than 4.000 meters of altitude. In addition, the American Civil War has consequences on the progress of the work. The boats Southerners attack the ships which supply the building site. The four contractors entrust to the engineer in railroad Theodore Judah the care to find a way through the mountain. This one studies for that the land surveys and proposes a layout which requires bridges, tons of dynamite and a many labor. The foreman James Harvey Strobridge must direct the teams of workmen. This last, which lost an eye, holds a solid reputation of authoritarianism.

In the first times, the workers engaged on the building site dream only to seek gold and to make fortune. The construction of the railroad is for them only one means of accumulating savings in order to buy material to prospect. Once this achieved objective, they leave the building site, so that the company is at the edge of the bankruptcy and the first 60 kilometers are far from being reached. The registers of year 1864 enter 600 workmen on the building site, whereas one would need 5000 of them.

Spring 1864 sees the arrival with San Francisco of thousands of Chinese who flee the Famine. Charles Crocker decides to employ them in spite of the opposition of Strobridge. Crocker estimates that the Chinese have all qualities and experience necessary for work. These Coolie S proves to be an excellent more effective and better labor gone than Europeans or the Americans. In 1868, they account for 2/3 of labor. They received wages lower than 35 dollars per month and were to build their own shelter.

At the summer 1865, the 60 kilometers required by Washington are posed and the federal capital flows to support the progression of the transcontinental one.

The engagement of the Union Pacific Railroad

With 3000 kilometers of Sacramento, the company of the Pacific Union decides to take share with transcontinental as from the moment when the American Civil War is finished. The project is partly supported by the Ames brothers of Boston who made fortune by selling guns during the American Civil War.

In 1866, thousands of veterans follow the young general Grenville Dodge who becomes the supervisor of the installation of the railroad for the Eastern section. This last is known for its participation in the Bataille of Atlanta and its punitive forwardings against the Sioux, the Cheyennes and the Arapaho S. It is chosen by the principal investor of the project Thomas Clark During, which made fortune in the smuggling of cotton during the American Civil War. During engages also a certain Jack Breaking as site foreman.

To attract other workmen, the congress multiplies the advantages: batches of ground are granted to the workers. Irish immigrants as of the Mormons constitute the remainder of labor. The line starts from Omaha in Nebraska. It progresses towards the west more quickly than in the Nevada Sierra; but the progress of the work runs up against the violence of Far West. Many workmen spend their pay in the Saloon S or with the prostitutes. Many dies in the confrontations which shake the Frontière. Grenville Dodge decides to put an end to this anarchy by calling upon expeditious methods and the lynching.

Construction

Difficulties in the Nevada Sierra

In California, the first years of the construction of the railroad are difficult. The terminus advances slowly. To accelerate the progression in the mountain, one uses the new process of the Nitroglycérine. Vis-a-vis the many victims of the explosions, one prefers to return to the traditional explosives. Work is slowed down by the frequent avalanches which carry all on their passage. The Chinese who find death are repatriated in their country to be buried there. The workmen must face the blizzard and the snow which accumulates half of the year. In front of this constraint, one builds wood galleries to preserve the way and to allow the trains circulating. The trains manage to climb the escarpées slopes of the Nevada Sierra thanks to the Bogie S, carriages mobile with two Essieu X which allow a greater mobility of the railway vehicles. The bridges with rest out of wooden make it possible to cross the throats; some measure about thirty meters height. One must also dig tunnels in the mountain: the persons in charge of the building site require of the Chinese that they work 24 hours a day, which causes a strike. Strobridge supports the 400 strikers but Crocker decides to remove their food to force them to resume work. It obtains finally the resumption of the building site. The tunnel is bored: from now on, the Nevada Sierra is crossed by the railroad. Work continues in direction of the east, in order to join the Pacific Union.

Progression in the east

The Amerindians of the Large Plains feel threatened by the arrival of the “iron horse” on their territory. The August 27th 1867, Cheyennes attack the workmen of the transcontinenal. They cause a ambush while placing trunks on the rails and put fire at the train. They massacre several men. Dodge decides to carry out reprisals against the Amerindians. He is assisted by the general Sherman, known to have ordered the fire of the town of Atlanta during the American Civil War. This last repeats its strategy of the burned Ground against the Indians and it is at the origin of the great massacres of Bison S in this area. Marksmen are engaged and the workmen from now on are armed. If the ground is flat, the natural constraints exist in the Large Plains: when the face arrives in Wyoming, the torrents caused by the snow melt carry all on their passage. The men try to avoid this threat by accumulating sandbags.

Accounting scandal

The journalist Charles Adams discovers that Thomas Clark Lasting assembled a swindle of scale. This last diverts money of the company Union Pacific for its profit or that of the shareholders. Dodge threatens to resign if the Lasting doctor does not stop his embezzlements.

The junction with Promontory Summit

The two lines converge towards Utah. The Congress fixes the finishing line: that causes an emulation between the men. Each team redoubles efforts to arrive the first. The Chinese of the Pacific Exchange manage to establish a record by building 15 kilometers in one day. April 30th, 1869, it is the team of the west which arrives at the head. May 10th, 1869, the last length of rail is symbolically posed by the workmen of the two companies. Leland Stanford posed a gold nail which symbolizes the completion of the first transcontinental one, now preserved to the museum of the Université Stanford in California. Indeed, it was replaced thereafter by an iron nail.

Conclusion: really plain States

Range

It taken six years of work to build first transcontinental History. This technical exploit required the sacrifice of almost 2 000 men on the 20 000 employees. Whereas it took six months to join the two ends of the United States out of carriage, the railroad made it possible to make in one week thanks to the train. In second half of the 19th century, the American population installed in the states of the West passes from 150 000 to 4 million. The completion of transcontinental accelerated the settlement of the west by the colonists and contributed to the decline of the Indian population. The economic takeoff of California was supported by immigration, the discovery of gold and the transcontinental one.

Today

Nowadays, several hundred kilometers of this railway is still in service, in particular in the Sierra Nevada and the canyons. But the rails were replaced. Several points of view are accessible in particular by California' S Truckee Canyon on the shelters out of wooden which protects the rails in winter.

The railway company Amtrak proposes a daily connection since Emeryville in the Baie of San Francisco, until Chicago, called California Zephyr. It borrows the original layout of transcontinental on a portion active of Sacramento from Winnemucca in Nevada.

May 8th, 1999 was inaugurated a monument in memory of the thousands of Chinese who took part in the construction of transcontinental American. It is along the highway 174 in Cape Horn in California.

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