“The Iron Road”

1883 – American Railway Association divides U.S. into 4 time zones

1862 – Pacific Railway Act Union Pacific Central Pacific

1865 – 35,000 miles of track

1900 – 200,000+ miles

Transcontinental Railroad

Headed west from Omaha, NE in 1865Blizzards, scorching heat, hostile American IndiansLabor, money, & engineering problemsIrish immigrants, failed miners & farmers, ex-

convicts, Civil War veterans10,000 workersHell On Wheels

Union Pacific

Headed east from Sacramento, CA“Big Four” – Leland Stanford, Charley Crocker, Mark

Hopkins, Collis P. HuntingdonHired 10,000 Chinese workers - $1/dayAll equipment shipped from eastern U.S.Had to blast tunnels through solid mountains

Central Pacific

Central Pacific Railway

1 mile of track – 400 rails, each rail took 10 spikesCP – Laid 688 miles of trackUP – 1,086 miles

“The two trains pulled up facing each other, each crowded with workmen. . . . The officers and invited guests formed on each side of the track. . . . Prayer was offered; a number of spikes were driven in the two adjoining rails . . . and thus the two roads were wedded into one great trunk line from the Atlantic to the Pacific.”

— How We Built the Union Pacific Railway, 1910

Promontory Summit, UT – May 10, 1869

“The Last Spike”

First big business in U.S.Large railroad companies connected hundreds of

small railroadsSpent huge $ on steel, coal, timberFreight prices ↓ by half between 1860 & 1900

Railroad Growth

Federal govt. gave land grants to railroadsRailroad entrepreneurs became rich – Cornelius

Vanderbilt & Jay Gould, called robber baronsInvestors bribed members of CongressCrédit Mobilier Scandal – 1872

Members of Congress buy shares at well below market price Letter appears in New York Sun listing Congressmen

Great Northern Railroad succeeds w/o land grants or corruption

Railroads & Corruption

Exit Slip: How do you think the Transcontinental Railroad will transform the nation?