Download Transcontinental Railroad in the U.S.

Transcontinental Railroad in the U.S.
Library of Congress
The issue: In the 1850s, Congress began considering legislation that would provide loans and
public land for the construction of a transcontinental railroad. Should the federal government help
fund the railroad? Or would that exceed the government's authority?
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Arguments against the transcontinental railroad: The government's role in society should
be limited. The government particularly should not become involved in funding internal improvement
projects such as railroads--that is the domain of the states, and government intervention would be
unconstitutional. Furthermore, the land is not the government's to give away or sell. The land
belongs to the people, and the government has no right to sell it to fund what is essentially a
speculative scheme.
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Arguments in favor of the transcontinental railroad: The railroad will benefit the entire
nation. It will improve trade between the Eastern and Western U.S. as well as between the U.S. and
Asia, and could also be used to transport troops in the event of war. The railroad will also unite the
nation. Considering all the benefits, the railroad must be built as soon as possible. However, it is too
vast an undertaking for private enterprise; federal resources are necessary to assure the success of
the project.
Background
The U.S. in the mid-19th century was a huge country with a sparsely populated interior. Crosscountry travel—by stagecoach, on horseback, or on foot—required great stamina, while traveling by
ship meant having to sail all the way around South America. Consequently, getting from one coast to
the other could take up to six months. However, that changed in 1869 with the completion of the
transcontinental railroad, which reduced travel time between the coasts.
The construction of the transcontinental railroad was regarded as one of the world's great
engineering feats. The railroad stretched 1,775 miles, linking Sacramento, California,
to Omaha, Nebraska, where it connected with the eastern network of railroads. The transcontinental
railroad was built across empty plains and over—and sometimes through—mountains. At its highest
point, it was 7,000 feet above sea level; tunnels through the mountains were up to 1,600 feet long.
The railroad had a far-reaching impact on the nation. It bound the West more firmly to the rest of the
country and helped increase Western settlement, while expanding commerce between the Eastern
and Western U.S., thereby spurring economic growth.
However, it had not been a foregone conclusion that a railroad to the Pacific would be built. The
project was first proposed in the early 1830s, but at the time, many people doubted it would even be
possible to build a railroad across vast plains populated by Indians and buffalo, and over steep,
treacherous mountains. It would be three decades before Congress passed legislation authorizing
the construction of the railroad.
Even after most people came to agree on the feasibility of building a transcontinental railroad,
sectional rivalries between the free North and the slave-holding South made it impossible for
legislators to agree on what route it would follow. While Southerners insisted that it be built through
the South, Northerners balked, worried about the power and influence a railroad running through the
South would give to the slave states. (That problem was solved in late 1860 and early 1861, when
the South seceded from the Union; with no Southerners in Congress, legislators were able to agree
on a Northern route.)
Skepticism and sectional rivalries were not the only obstacles that had to be overcome before the
railroad could be built. In 1845, merchant Asa Whitney presented the first detailed transcontinental
railroad proposal to Congress. Under his plan, he would be responsible for building the railroad but
the government would help fund it by selling him land at a discount. While Whitney and his
supporters stressed the national benefits to be gained from linking East and West, critics rejected his
proposal, arguing that the government should not become involved in building the railroad.
Early critics of the transcontinental railroad questioned whether it was possible to build such a largescale project through the unsettled West, and doubted that an adequate source of fuel for the trains
could be found in the West. However, most opponents did not question whether a railroad would
eventually be built. Rather, they questioned whether the federal government should be involved in
funding the railroad.
Critics argued that the government's role in society should be limited, particularly when it came to
funding internal improvement projects such as railroads. Furthermore, critics maintained, the land
was not the government's to give away or sell. It belonged to the people, they insisted, and the
government had no right to sell it to fund what was essentially a speculative scheme by Whitney.
Supporters, on the other hand, stressed the value of the railroad, which they said would benefit the
entire nation. It would facilitate trade between the East and West coasts as well as between the U.S.
and Asia, and could also be used to transport troops in the event of war, they said. A railroad
running from the Atlantic to the Pacific would also help to unite the nation, particularly by binding
California more firmly to the Union, proponents added.
Considering all the benefits of a transcontinental railroad, supporters insisted, it had to be built as
soon as possible. However, they argued that the railroad was too large an undertaking for private
enterprise; federal resources were necessary to assure the success of the project. Supporters also
pointed out that, under the Constitution, the federal government was allowed to dispose of public
land in ways that would most benefit the nation.
Western Expansion Fuels Calls for a Railroad to the Pacific
Americans had experimented with railroad construction since the late 18th century. However, those
early trains covered only a short distance, running on wooden rails and being pulled by horses or
mules. Some of those early railroads were simply gravity railroads—they ran downhill, allowing trains
to be pulled forward by the force of gravity.
Eventually the wooden rails were replaced with iron, locomotives replaced horses and mules, and
railroad building greatly expanded in the East. At the start of 1830, just 23 miles of rail existed in the
U.S., according to author John Galloway in The First Transcontinental Railroad (1950); by the end of
the decade, 2,818 miles of railroad had been constructed.
As American settlement expanded beyond the Allegheny Mountains—which ran
through Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia—so too did the railroads. In light of that achievement,
some people began looking even further westward. In the early 1830s, several newspaper articles
were written envisioning a railroad that could link the East Coast with the West Coast. However, at
that time it was widely believed that such a railroad was not feasible. As newspaper editor Horace
Greeley put it, people thought that building a transcontinental railroad was just as impractical as
building a "tunnel under the Atlantic or a bridge to the moon."
Central Pacific Railroad workers are transported on flatcars across a trestle at
Promontory Summit in Utah in 1868.
Library of Congress
However, more people began to see a need for a transcontinental railroad in the 1840s. During that
decade, Americans became gripped by a belief that they had a "manifest destiny" to occupy the
continent from coast to coast. To fully settle the West, people needed to be able to reach it more
easily, and Western goods had to be able to be shipped to Eastern markets. Many saw a
transcontinental railroad as the best solution. [See Manifest Destiny]
Asa Whitney, 'Father of the Pacific Railroad'
In the 1840s, New York merchant Whitney became one of the leading voices calling for a Pacific
railroad. In 1844, Whitney returned from a trip to China, where he had become convinced of the
benefits of expanding U.S.-China trade. However, the vast distances involved made trade
impractical; it took as much as six months to travel from New York merely to the eastern border of
California, and then additional time to get to the Pacific. Whitney reasoned that by reducing the time
needed to travel to the West from months to days, a transcontinental railroad would make trade with
the Far East more feasible.
On January 28, 1845, he wrote a "memorial" (memorandum or petition) to Congress—presented in
the House by Representative Zadock Pratt (D, New York) and in the Senate by Senator Daniel
Dickinson (D, New York)—describing a detailed proposal for building a railroad from Lake
Michigan to the Columbia River in Oregon. Under Whitney's plan for a railroad, the estimated cost
would be $50 million, with an additional $15 million for incidental and management expenses.
[See Asa Whitney Petitions Congress to Build a Transcontinental Railroad (primary
document); Response to Asa Whitney's Railroad Plan (primary document)]
To fund the railroad, Whitney would purchase land from the government along a 60-mile-wide strip
at a nominal cost (10 cents an acre). What was not used for the railroad itself would be sold to
finance its construction. Whitney would manage the railroad, but after it began to make a profit he
would turn it over to the government. He personally surveyed the route, and traveled throughout the
country advocating railroad construction.
Whitney's proposal was rejected, but he continued to present it to each new Congress.
Nevertheless, all plans for a transcontinental railroad were largely stalled due to regional rivalries
between the slave-holding South and the free North. Southerners insisted that the railroad be built
along a southern route, while Northern legislators insisted on a northern route.
With the acquisition of California from Mexico after the U.S. won the Mexican-American War in 1848,
and with the discovery of gold in California later that year, a transcontinental railroad gained added
importance in the eyes of many. California would be an important part of the Union, they argued;
Americans needed an easy way to travel there. [See Mexican-American War; California Gold Rush]
In 1850, the Senate Committee on Roads and Canals submitted a bill that would grant Whitney the
requested land. The bill was not passed, but in 1853, the War Department took the step of funding
surveys of five possible routes for a transcontinental railroad. After examining routes through the
northern, central and southern U.S., the surveyors found all of them feasible. However, Secretary of
War Jefferson Davis, a Southerner, declared that the most southerly route was "the most practicable
and economical route for a railroad route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean."
[See Senate Bill to Sell Asa Whitney Land to Build a Pacific Railroad (Excerpt) (primary
document); Report of the Secretary of War on Pacific Railroad Surveys (Excerpts) (primary
document)]
That year, with a view to building the railroad through the South, Davis persuaded the government to
purchase nearly 30,000 square miles of land in present-day Arizona and New Mexico from Mexico
for $10 million in the Gadsden Purchase. However, Northern lawmakers continued to object to a
southern route.
In 1856, Thomas Durant, a physician who advocated a transcontinental railroad, funded his own
survey, carried out by Grenville Dodge. Dodge claimed that the Nebraska route was the best. That
year, the Select Committee on the Pacific Railroad and Telegraph presented the Pacific Railroad Bill
to the House, but the bill failed again.
No substantive action would be taken on the railroad for the remainder of the decade, although
debate continued over whether or not a railroad should be built. Aside from the debate over what
route should be followed, much of the dispute focused on what role the government should play in
building the transcontinental railroad. Should the government help finance the railroad, or was it best
left to private individuals?
The Case for the Transcontinental Railroad
Supporters of the transcontinental railroad focused on the importance of the railroad. It would benefit
the entire nation, not just the states it traversed, they asserted. Senator Augustus Dodge (D, Iowa)
described the value of the railroad:
Now, I ask if it is at all probable in the course of human events there will ever come before Congress
a measure which is more certainly and surely of national importance than that now before us? I think
not. None to compare with it in nationality or in any other point of view.... All the money expended in
the construction of the road will be for the benefit of our own citizens; and all those great incidental
benefits everywhere imparted to the value of the soil by thoroughfares of this sort, the building up of
cities and towns, encouragements to emigration from both extremes of the world, will inure to the
advantage of our own country and our own citizens.
According to Whitney, the main benefit from the railroad would be in linking the U.S. with Asia. That
would facilitate trade between the U.S. and Asia by dramatically reducing the amount of time it took
to travel from the Eastern U.S. to the Orient, supporters said. However, the railroad would also
benefit domestic trade by making it easier for Eastern goods to reach Western markets and vice
versa, supporters contended.
In boosting trade between the Eastern and Western U.S., as well as trade with Asia, the
transcontinental railroad would contribute to making the U.S. an economic powerhouse that could
surpass its longtime rival Great Britain, supporters argued. "For more than fifty years the United
States have been engaged in a commercial contest with England," Dodge pointed out. He
concluded, "This Pacific railroad across our country will be the grave of British commercial
supremacy. The epoch of its completion will be the zenith of her sun over the sea—from that day the
splendor of her maritime power will begin to grow dim."
The Pacific railroad also had strategic value, proponents said. Whitney declared in his memorial that
by giving the U.S. easier access to the Pacific Ocean, "with a naval depot and a small army we could
then command the Pacific, the South Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, and the Chinese Seas." The
railroad would also contribute to the domestic defense, proponents argued, by making it easy to
transport troops throughout the country.
The railroad would also help unite the nation, which was crucial in light of how sprawling the U.S.
was, supporters asserted. As Whitney declared, it "would bring all our immensely wide-spread
population together as in one vast city."
That was particularly important in tying faraway California more closely to the Union, supporters
said. "Her interest and ours must be connected; and if they are not, it can hardly be expected that,
with no communication between us, save through a circuitous one by sea, or through foreign
countries, it can, for any great length of time, remain a part of the [Union]," Senator John Niles
(D, Connecticut) warned.
In light of the importance of the railroad, it was crucial that the railroad be built, supporters insisted.
But the railroad was such a huge undertaking that private interests alone would not have the
resources necessary to complete it; the government would have to be involved to assure the
success of the project, they asserted. In his first memorial to Congress, Whitney stated that he could
see "no ways or means by which this great and important object can be accomplished for ages to
come, except by a grant of a sufficient quantity of the public domain."
Supporters asserted that there was a precedent for government intervention in building the railroad.
They noted that in the past, the government had granted land for the building of canals, and before
that had funded the construction of a national road. Representative Lewis Campbell (Whig, Ohio)
pointed to the example of government canal-building in his state:
Congress gave a grant of alternate sections of land to enable [Ohio] to construct her canals. The
improvements were made, and although these canals are now looked upon as 'old fogies,' and are
superseded, to a great extent, by the railroads...yet they gave large profits to labor, by the facilities
which they furnished for a cheap transportation of the products of the soil to the market. They
formed, sir, the basis of that prosperity which has enabled Ohio to march forward with the strides of
a giant to the high stand she now occupies in the community of states. Its benefits have been
accorded to other States—Congress has approved and reapproved it. Why stop now?
Furthermore, proponents maintained, the government had a right to use public lands for that
purpose. They pointed out that according to the Constitution, "The Congress shall have power to
dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the Territory or other property
belonging to the United States."
In fact, they said, the government had not just a right but an obligation to use those lands for the
good of the nation. "It is not only in the power of Congress under the Constitution, but it is binding on
that body, as the custodian of the public property, to dispose of the public lands in such a manner as
may directly or indirectly inure to the benefit of the greatest number of its citizens, so far as that can
be accomplished without injury to any portion of the country," declared Henry Sibley, a former
congressional delegate from the territories of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Granting lands for the
building of the railroad would also make all of the other government-held lands even more valuable,
they stated.
Supporters dismissed arguments that the railroad should not be built because the West had not yet
been settled. The railroad would, in fact, help facilitate the settlement of the West, they asserted,
which would ease the burden of overcrowding in Eastern cities. In an 1853 article, the New York
Times declared that "it is the railroad which settles a country, and not the country which makes the
railroad."
Proponents also said it would not make sense to abandon the railroad simply because of fears that it
might inspire corporate fraud. According to Senator Henry Geyer (Whig, Missouri):
To contend that that power may be abused, is to contend that no corporation should ever be
created; nay, sir, that no trust shall be confided to any individual, for it is liable to be abused. But in
this country we have no reason to apprehend any great abuse of power. If the corporation should
exceed its powers, we have a judicial tribunal that will rebuke it. Its powers may be tested to the
same law and by the same tribunal that our rights of property are inquired into.
The Case Against the Transcontinental Railroad
Few opposed the idea of a transcontinental railroad in general. Those who did claimed that it was
unwise to build something so large through unsettled lands. Because of the huge risk involved,
critics asserted, the government should determine conclusively that it was practical to build a
transcontinental railroad before contributing funds to it. Senator James Cooper (Whig, Pennsylvania)
elaborated in debate during the 32nd Congress: [See Senator Cooper Advises Caution in Building a
Transcontinental Railroad (primary document)]
We have been told by travelers, and it remains uncontradicted to the present hour...that there are
wastes extending hundreds of miles in which there is not a stick of timber, scarcely a blade of grass,
or a drop of water. From what we know of the ability to propel locomotive engines at this day, I would
ask how are cars and great railroad trains to be carried over such wastes as those? Sir, I doubt
exceedingly, if fuel be not found in greater abundance than it is believed to be in those wastes, that a
railroad will be bound to be practicable on that account.
Many people also argued that the federal government should not be involved in building a
transcontinental railroad. They stressed that the government should have only a limited role in
society—that of making laws. Representative Geritt Smith (Free Soiler, New York) warned against
the "mixing up of Government with the concerns of its peoples." While he supported a railroad in
principle, Smith said, it would be "largely overbalanced by the evil of having such a connection of
Government with it, as the bill proposes."
For one thing, critics contended, railroad construction represented an internal improvement—a
publically funded project falling under state jurisdiction. Any federal funding of such improvements
would be unconstitutional, they argued. If the government were allowed to fund the transcontinental
railroad, they warned, nothing would be able to stop it from funding other internal projects in the
future.
"To be sure, this is an internal improvement through Texas, or Iowa, or Arkansas, and California. But
if you can go through one State, you can go through ten; and if you can appropriate $20,000,000,
you can appropriate $500,000,000," Senator Andrew Butler (D, South Carolina) declared. "If the
principles of this bill be admitted, there is no limit at all to the system of measures, that can be
accomplished by the appropriation of money by this Government," he added.
Furthermore, the land was not the government's to give away or sell; it belonged to the American
people, critics insisted. The government, therefore, could not use public lands to finance the railroad,
as Whitney's plan proposed, they asserted. "Government no more owns them than it does the
sunlight, which falls upon them, or the atmosphere, which floats over them," Smith declared. He
continued, "All that Government has to do with them, is but to protect and regulate the occupation of
them. It is not for Government to sell them; and it is not for Government to give them away, any
more than it was for Satan to give away to the Savior 'all the kingdoms of the world.'"
Overall, critics concluded, the railroad would best be built by private interests. In fact, critics ridiculed
the argument that the government had to be involved in the project or it would fail. "I would turn this
argument against the building of the road by Government: and I would say, that if it cannot be built
unless Government build it, then it manifestly should not be built. For if sharp-sighted individual
enterprise cannot be tempted to undertake it, then it certainly would be a most unprofitable and
unwise undertaking for Government," Smith insisted.
Some opponents also objected to the government providing funds for what they called the
speculative, money-making scheme of one man. "I certainly do not feel called upon to treat with any
peculiar mark of respect...the proposition of an individual who comes before the Congress of the
United States and asks the action of Congress for his especial benefit, and to enable him to carry
out a gigantic speculation," Representative James Bowlin (D, Missouri) asserted in debate in 1849.
Others opposed the idea of corporations being given responsibility for building the railroads.
Corporations in the past had demonstrated a tendency to be corrupt, critics asserted, and giving
them charge of such a large project would only invite abuse. Cooper pointed to the building of state
railroads as an example of the potential for corruption:
I have seen, in a neighboring State, the influence of these railroad corporations. There are two or
three railroads, not, perhaps, more than four hundred or five hundred miles in extent, and yet they
control, politically, socially, and morally, the whole population of that State. They make and they
unmake at pleasure. And let a railroad of this kind be built across the continent; let the company
have at its command the transportation of the commodities of the whole eastern world, as you are
told it will...and what kind of powers will it possess? Unexampled in the history of the world.
Critics expressed particular concern about selling stock in the railroad to help finance it. That stock
would likely end up in the hands of foreign capitalists, opponents warned, giving them control over a
vital part of the U.S. Bowlin elaborated:
Upon the passage of this act, and the creation of a hundred millions of dollars of stock, founded
upon a broad belt of country, through the very heart of the Republic, where is it to go, and who are to
be the owners and proprietors? This stock would go where money was most abundant and cheap,
as naturally as water finds its level; and where was that?... It was amongst the great capitalists
of Europe, and when they owned the stock, they owned the land, the road, and every incident
connected with it. This presented a beautiful spectacle for statesmen and patriots—the bankers of
Europe holding a belt of land sixty miles wide, and upward of two thousand miles long, through the
very heart of the Republic, with the privilege of making and controlling a great commercial highway
over the Continent, and that forever.
Congress Passes the Pacific Railway Act
By the early 1860s, it was widely agreed that the country needed a transcontinental railroad, and
that it was only a matter of time before one was built. Whitney had since retired, but he was replaced
by an equally vigorous advocate for a Pacific Railroad: engineer Theodore Judah, who had helped
build the Sacramento Valley Railroad.
Workers building the transcontinental railroad.
Library of Congress
In 1860, Judah conducted his own survey, and said he found a workable route through the Sierra
Nevada mountain range, along the banks of the American River. Judah traveled throughout the
country in an effort to find backers for a railroad, but he ran into problems, since many considered
such a large project to be a risky investment.
He finally found a group of four investors in Sacramento: merchants Mark Hopkins, Collis
Huntington, Chester Crocker and Leland Stanford. All four men had moved to California during the
Gold Rush looking to make their fortunes; together, they founded Central Pacific Railroad of
California in June 1861, with Judah as the chief engineer.
A major roadblock to a transcontinental railway was removed in late 1860 and early 1861 when the
Southern states seceded from the Union after Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln was elected
president. With no Southerners in Congress, the Northern route faced no competition. The Civil
War (1861-65) that followed the secession of the states also illustrated the necessity of a railroad for
transporting troops to all parts of the country. That fall, Congress began considering a bill for funding
a transcontinental railroad.
On May 6, 1862, the House approved the Pacific Railway Act (also known as the Pacific Railroad
Act). The act funded the construction of a railway and telegraph line to the West Coast; in return, the
trains would carry U.S. mail and troops at reduced cost. The Senate approved the bill the following
month, on June 20, and Lincoln signed it on July 1.
The act chartered two corporations to build the railroad—one laying track from east to west and one
working from west to east. The two would meet at a location to be determined later. Central Pacific
was chosen to build the western portion of the railroad, and Union Pacific Railroad was created to
build the eastern portion.
Under the terms of the bill, for every mile of track built, the companies would be given 10 sections of
land consisting of 6,400 acres. (Because of difficulties finding investors in the railroad, the bill was
amended in 1864 to improve the terms, including doubling the amount of land for each mile built.)
Whatever land the companies did not use for the railroad itself could be sold to help fund the building
of the railroad, just as Whitney had proposed 20 years earlier. The government would also lend the
railroad companies government funds, in the form of bonds, to construct it, and stock would be sold
to private investors to further fund the railroad.
Not having specified a meeting point for the two railroad companies, the act also left the starting
point for each line to be determined later. It was widely agreed that the western portion would begin
in Sacramento. On January 8, 1863, Central Pacific broke ground for the railroad. However, railroad
investors were still scarce; beset by debt and having to overpay for scarce supplies because of the
war, the company would not begin actual construction until nearly a year later. [See 'Progress and
Character of the Railroad' (Excerpt) (primary document)]
Chinese workers camp alongside the railway as they build the transcontinental railroad
in the West.
Library of Congress
Central Pacific also faced difficulty finding workers; most Californians preferred hunting for gold to
the backbreaking work of building a railroad. To fill the gap, Central Pacific turned to the Chinese,
who had traveled to California by the thousands during the Gold Rush. Chinese men were initially
viewed as being too small and weak to do the job, but after a few were given the opportunity, they
impressed their foremen with how much they could accomplish. By 1866, more than 80% of the
Central Pacific workforce was Chinese. However, anti-Chinese sentiment was pervasive: Chinese
workers were paid less than white workers—white workers typically earned $40 a week, compared
with $25-$40 for the Chinese—and were often assigned the most dangerous jobs.
While the western starting point was clearly going to be Sacramento, there was debate over where
the eastern line should start. Three main options were considered: Omaha, Nebraska; St. Joseph,
Missouri; and Kansas City, Kansas. Lincoln took the advice of Dodge, who advocated the Nebraska
line. On November 17, 1863, Lincoln issued an order officially fixing the starting point at Omaha.
Union Pacific broke ground for the railroad on December 2 of that year. However, most of the
construction took place after the Civil War ended in 1865. While the Central Pacific relied mostly on
Chinese laborers, the Union Pacific employed a large number of immigrants—mostly Irish—as well
as former soldiers and freed slaves.
Because the two companies were paid according to how many miles of track they laid, there was a
race between the two to lay the most track. At one point, as the two companies drew closer, they
began laying parallel tracks through Utah. They knew that only one line would ultimately be used,
but each company wanted to be paid for laying more track. [See Fraud and Scandal in the Building
of the Transcontinental Railroad (sidebar)]
Discovering that parallel lines were beginning to be laid, Congress planned an investigation into the
progress of the railroads. On his inauguration day, on March 4, 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant (R,
1869-77) warned that the government would not pay any more money unless the companies agreed
on a meeting point. Spurred by this threat from the government, both sides, on April 9, formally
agreed to have their lines meet at Promontory Summit, north of Great Salt Lake in Utah. Later that
day, Congress issued a joint resolution to that effect.
From that point, it was a race to the finish to see who could lay the most rails. On April 28, as the
result of a $10,000 bet between Crocker and Durant, now vice president of Union Pacific, Central
Pacific laid a record 10 miles and 56 feet of track.
Engineers for the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroad companies shake hands as
the two lines meet at Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10, 1869.
Library of Congress
On May 10, the two lines met at Promontory Summit, marking the completion of the railroad. The
event was observed with a ceremony, in which a "golden spike" from California was pounded into a
ceremonial railroad tie. Three other spikes were driven into the tie as well: a silver spike
from Nevada; a gold, silver and iron spike from Arizona; and a gold spike contributed by the San
Francisco News Letter. (The ceremonial spikes and tie were later removed and replaced with a
regular railroad spike and tie.) News of the ceremony was telegraphed throughout the nation, to
widespread celebration.
The Union Pacific had laid 1,085 miles of track through Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming territories,
into Utah. The Central Pacific had laid 690 miles from Sacramento, going through Nevada to Utah.
Later that year, the track was extended from Sacramento to San Francisco Bay, linking the railroad
to the Pacific Coast.
The Union Pacific side was not completely connected to the East until 1872, when a bridge was built
over the Missouri River. Previously the line had run to the river, and passengers would then have to
take a boat across the river, to connect with the Eastern train lines that terminated at Council Bluffs,
Iowa, on the other side of the river.
Impact of the Transcontinental Railroad
Although Whitney had proposed the transcontinental railroad mainly as a way of providing access to
Asia, the railroad had a more immediate impact on the development of the American West. The
Pacific Railway Act was signed shortly after the Homestead Act, which granted land to settlers in an
attempt to spur Western settlement. The railroad did much to advance that cause, making it easier to
travel to the West and developing East-West trade. Western industries such
as timber, mining and ranching could now easily ship their products to the East, and in return
receive manufactured goods from the East. A new Western economy also sprang up around the
production of materials for building railroads, bridges and stations, as well as coal mining, to fuel the
trains. [See Homestead Act]
However, the transcontinental railroad project also had unintended consequences. For instance, it
indirectly led to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, which threatened to upset the
delicate balance between free and slave states and sparked violence known as "Bleeding
Kansas." Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas (D), who sought a transcontinental railroad with a
terminus in Chicago, had sponsored the Kansas-Nebraska Act, believing that before a railroad could
be built, the unorganized lands through which it would travel had to be settled. However, the
settlement of the Nebraska territory had been blocked by disagreements over whether or not slavery
would be allowed there. [See Kansas-Nebraska Act]
Douglas offered a compromise whereby two territories would be created—Nebraska and Kansas—
with the question of slavery to be decided by the inhabitants of those territories according to the
principle of "popular sovereignty." That led to Bleeding Kansas, as violence erupted between
Northerners and Southerners who flocked to Kansas in an attempt to determine whether it would
allow slavery. (It was assumed that the more-northern Nebraska would prohibit slavery.) The
incident contributed to sectional tensions that led to the Civil War.
Hunters shoot buffalo from a train in 1871. Buffalo hunting was a popular excursion
for travelers across the Plains.
Library of Congress
The railroad also precipitated the decline of the Plains Indians. Since the founding of the U.S., Native
Americans had been pushed westward as white settlement expanded and settlers demanded more
land—which was occupied by the Native Americans. The railroad ran through Plains Indian grounds,
pushing them off their land and disrupting their way of life. In retaliation, the Indians attacked railroad
workers, leading to warfare against the Indians. The settlement of the West that followed the building
of the railroad prompted further warfare. Most Native Americans ended up on reservations (land set
aside for them by the government). [See Transcontinental Railroad Fuels Hostilities with Native
Americans (sidebar)]
After the completion of the transcontinental railroad, railroad construction in the West continued at a
steady pace. By 1890, there were 72,000 miles of track in the West. By 1900, four more crosscountry railroads had been built, largely following the routes surveyed in 1853.
Because of its central role in the nation's economy, the railroad industry became one of the most
powerful in the U.S. However, in the 1870s and 1880s, railroad companies were beset with instability
and corruption, and were being dragged down by cutthroat competition for passengers. After
determining that the railroads were unable to govern themselves effectively, the government stepped
in and, for the first time ever, imposed regulations on an industry by enacting the Interstate
Commerce Act of 1887. Besides regulating the railroads, this legislation set a precedent for future
government intervention in business affairs. [See Interstate Commerce Act]
Overall, railroads—particularly the transcontinental railroad—had a profound impact on American
life. As Whitney had predicted in his 1845 memorial, the railroad had indeed become "as the heart is
to the human body."
Bibliography
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Blumberg, Rhoda. Full Steam Ahead: The Race to Build a Transcontinental Railroad. Washington,
D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1996.
Cahill, Marie, and Lynne Piade, eds. The History of the Union Pacific: America's Great
Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Crown Publishers, 1989.
Cross, Coy. Go West, Young Man! Horace Greeley's Vision for America. Albuquerque: University of
New Mexico Press, 1995.
Davis, John. The Union Pacific Railway: A Study in Railway Politics, History, and Economics.
Chicago: S.C. Griggs, 1884.
"Defeat of the Pacific Railroad." New York Times, February 21, 1853: 8.
Galloway, John. The First Transcontinental Railroad: Central Pacific, Union Pacific. New York:
Simmons-Boardman, 1950.
Oakes Ames: A Memoir. Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside Press, 1883.
Perry, John. Facing West: Americans and the Opening of the Pacific. Westport, Conn.: Praeger,
1994.
"Railroad Communication with the Pacific: Central Pacific Railroad." The Galaxy. December 1867, 1.
Rayner, Richard. The Associates: Four Capitalists Who Created California. New York: W. W.
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Renehan, Edward, Jr. The Transcontinental Railroad: The Gateway to the West. New York: Chelsea
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Citation Information
MLA
Chicago Manual of Style
Kauffman, Jill. “Transcontinental Railroad.” April 2, 2008. Issues & Controversies in American History. Infobase Learning.
http://icah.infobaselearning.com/icahfullarticle.aspx?ID=107557 (accessed January 6, 2017).