1. “The Iron Road”

2. 1883 – American Railway Association divides
U.S. into 4 time zones

3. Transcontinental Railroad
1862 – Pacific Railway Act
Union Pacific
Central Pacific
1865 – 35,000 miles of track
1900 – 200,000+ miles

4. Union Pacific Headed west from Omaha, NE in 1865
Blizzards, scorching heat, hostile American Indians
Labor, money, & engineering problems
Irish immigrants, failed miners & farmers, ex-convicts, Civil War veterans
10,000 workers
Hell On Wheels

6. Central Pacific Headed east from Sacramento, CA
“Big Four” – Leland Stanford, Charley Crocker, Mark Hopkins, Collis P. Huntingdon
Hired 10,000 Chinese workers - $1/day
All equipment shipped from eastern U.S.
Had to blast tunnels through solid mountains

7. Central Pacific Railway

8. 1 mile of track – 400 rails, each rail took 10 spikes
CP – Laid 688 miles of track
UP – 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

9. Promontory Summit, UT – May 10, 1869
“The Last Spike”
Promontory Summit, UT – May 10, 1869

10. Railroad Growth First big business in U.S.
Large railroad companies connected hundreds of small railroads
Spent huge $ on steel, coal, timber
Freight prices ↓ by half between 1860 & 1900

11. Railroads & Corruption
Federal govt. gave land grants to railroads
Railroad entrepreneurs became rich – Cornelius Vanderbilt & Jay Gould, called robber barons
Investors bribed members of Congress
Crédit 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

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