The Transcontinental Railway was a huge undertaking for the still young country, and took many men to complete, and reshaped the country as we know it. This will examine how the Transcontinental Railway was built, who built it and the problems that were encountered during the build. It will also look at how the railroad impacted the country economically. And last it will tell how it helped settle the western frontier, and how those people lived. Before the building of the Transcontinental Railway travel across the continent was slow. It would take a lot of money, and take as long as 5 to 6 months to get from coast to coast (Mintz, 2013). One could also travel by sea around the tip of South America, but that journey was full of danger. Once …show more content…
The building of the railroad would start when President Abraham Lincoln passed the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 (Mintz, 2013). The government would pay $16,000 per flat mile, $32,000 for hilly mile, and $48,000 for mountain mile (Topic Page: Transcontinental Railroad, 2014). The companies were also given 16,000 acres of land on each side of every mile the laid (Topic Page: Transcontinental Railroad, 2014). The construction was undertaken by two railroad companies, the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad. The Union Pacific started in Omaha, NE and would build west, and the Central Pacific would build east starting from Sacramento, CA (Topic Page: Transcontinental Railroad, 2014). The railroad was to cross over 2000 miles of open plains, desert, and mountains of solid granite (Mintz, 2013). The construction would take eight long years and end on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, Utah with the driving of a golden …show more content…
One of the biggest ones faced by the Central Pacific Company was how to get across the Sierra Nevada mountain range. To conquer this problem, engineers used holes drilled into the rock and filled them with black powder to clear the way (The Transcontinental Railroad, 2012). Once they got into the high sierras black power was not strong enough, and they had to find something more powerful. Nitroglycerin was the solution to their problem. It was illegal to transport nitroglycerin, so what Central Pacific did was hire chemist James Howden to manufacture it on the site as it was needed (The Transcontinental Railroad, 2012). A secondary hazard of working in the mountains came from above it the form or blizzards, rock slides, and large ravines (The Transcontinental Railroad, 2012). On the Union Pacific front they faced constant fear of Native American attacks. The Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes who were seeing their home land taken from them and changed used war parties to try and stop the construction (Immigration, Railroads, and the West,
The Transcontinental Railroad definitely changed the lives of Native Americans forever. For example, conflicts arose as the railroad project continued westward. Because of this, military were brought in to fight the Native Americans. They were forced to relocate from their lands. This resulted in widespread destruction of their cultures and way of life.
The transcontinental railroad is now being to be built an as they build it the railroad the train goes along. After the completion
In 1864 Congress approved the Northern Pacific Railway to be built. The NPR is the first transcontinental railroad in the northern part of the country. It is 8,316 miles long, beginning in Minnesota and ending in Washington state, with many branches going off the main line. When congress approved it they also supplied nearly 40million acres of land grants to build the railroad on. Construction didn 't go underway until 1870, and the rail road was finally christened to open on Sept. 8 1888.
In the second half of the 19th century. the United States government made efforts to limit the presence of Native Americans and their culture within the Great Plains region. This increased tension betweens Plains Indians and the settlers of the Great Plains region. The development of the transcontinental railroad and discriminatory government land policies had disastrous effects on the lives of Plains Indians. The lives of Plains Indians were affected by technology through the transcontinental railroad.
The 13,000-mile sea route via Cape Horn was dangerous and took even longer, while the overland stage from St. Louis to San Francisco, if “only” 2,800 miles and thirty days long, was full of discomfort and danger.3 The wagon trains also were slow, expensive, and not well suited to heavy goods. The transcontinental railroad seemed like the only possible solution for this problem.
There have been steam engine trains trailing the United States in the early 1800’s. Many of the early ones ran only a few dozen miles. When the railways ran longer distances, the cost to build and later ride them were be extremely high. However, long distances were what Minnesota needed to keep up with the competitive and growing nation around it. “Construction began on the first track in 1861 in St. Paul and was completed in 1862.”
The railroad was first designed by George Stephenson whose original idea was to use steam to run the train and make transportation faster. When the US started using railroads and trains they purchased them from the Stephen Works company from Britain. “In the 1850s a boom in railroad development across the North was changing business organization and management and reducing freight costs. Railroads were influencing a rise in real estate values, increasing regional concentrations of industry, the size of business units and stimulating growth in investment banking and agriculture.
In 1862, congress began the pacific railroads act, it also provided funding for the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad. But, the other transcontinental lines came in shortly after. There were problems with finance in 1873 and 1893, which they had to immediately stop the process of construction; and many ventures were
The Transcontinental Railroad The completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad was an important event in the United States history. There were many challenges in building it, but after it was finished, it connected the East Coast of the United States to the West Coast. The railroad took three whole years to build, with the help of two railroad companies and thousands of other hired workers.
They believed the land was theirs to use as they saw fit. The Union Pacific's progress through the upper plains put construction workers in the path of the Plains Indians. Under the command of General Grenville Dodge, the U.S. army battled warriors from many Indian tribes, including the Sioux, Arapahoe, and Cheyenne in areas of Wyoming, Nebraska, as well as Colorado. The Sand Creek Massacre in 1864, in which U.S. Army forces raided and killed 150 Cheyenne Indian villagers, and the Cheyenne retribution at Julesburg, Colorado, a few weeks later were commonplace along the route of the railroad. (Cultural Impact of Building the Transcontnental Railroad
Central Pacific Railroad started from San Francisco, and used Chinese laborers for their work, pushing through the Sierra Nevada mountains. In 1867, to encourage quick progression, Congress deemed the land remaining between the two companies, which was the Utah plains, to be paid at mountain rate. This motivated the Union Pacific crew to lay 360 miles of track, and the Central Pacific crew to lay 425 miles of track within the year (Stockwell, 2011). Unfortunately, this hasty pace came at a cost.
The Chinese workers had to deal with it every single day, meaning their lives are at risk every second . Building the trail itself was hard enough, but putting their lives on the line to build it is over the top level of great danger. The Central Coast did not care, they only care the the work gets done. Hard work usually ends with rest, but for the Chinese, their job took over all their precious time. The book, “Chinese In America” also wrote, “ In the summer of 1866, to move farther faster, the railroad kept several shifts of men going day and night.
The Tremendous Impact of Railroads on America In the late 19th century, railroads propelled America into an era of unprecedented growth, prosperity, and convenient transportation. Prior to the building of the railroads, America lacked the proper and rapid transportation to make traveling across the country economical or practical. Lengthy travel was often cumbersome, costly, and dangerous.
In between California and the rest of the country were the Great Plains which were not heavily populated so there was no easy way of trade and transportation to the growing western territories. A group of men called the “Big Four” which consisted of Collis Huntington, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker and Mark Hopkins, decided what the country needed was a transcontinental railroad. Their company, The Central Pacific Railroad company would hire 15,000 Chinese men to work on constructing the railroad due to the fact that they would work for less than the average American. This made transportation cheaper and quicker than ever
The building of roads, canals and railroads played a large role in the United States during the 1800s. They served the purpose of connecting towns and settlements so that goods could be transported quickly and more efficiently. These goods could be transported fast, cheap and in safe way through the Erie Canal that was built to connect the Great Lakes to New York. Railroads were important during Civil War as well, because it helped in the transportation of goods, supplies and weapons when necessary. These new forms of transportation shaped the United States into the place that it is today.