Transcontinental Railroad (ME) Christian Campbell

           In 1862, two companies were provided for the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act. The government offered each company land along their right-of-way and both companies raced for land and money.

            Union Pacific

            Grenville Dodge, a former union general, and an engineer, began pushing the Union Pacific westward from Omaha, Nebraska, in 1865. Mountain blizzards, desert heat, and, sometimes, angry Native Americans were the trials the laborers had to face. Workers of the Union Pacific were civil war veterans, newly recruited Irish immigrants, miners and farmers, cooks, adventurers, and ex-convicts. All in all, there were 10,000 workers in the Union Pacific. Camp life held gambling, hard drinking, and fighting which made it rough and dangerous.

Central Pacific

Central Pacific Railroad was thought up by Theodore Judah. C.P.R. hired 10,000 workers from China and paid them a dollar a day to make up for California’s labor shortage. Their equipment—rails, cars, locomotives, and machinery—was shipped from eastern United States.

Last Spike

The railroad was completed May 10, 1869. Workers finished the railroad in four years. After the last spike was hammered in by Leland Stanford, telegraph operators sent news across the nation.