1/11/2024 0 Comments Golden spike utah 1869"It was a very hilarious occasion everybody had all they Travel time between America's east and west coasts was reduced from months to less than a week. Finally the two sets of railroad tracks were joined and the continent united with elaborate ceremony at Promontory, Utah on May 10, 1869. Progress was slow initially, but the pace quickened with the end of the Civil War. The Union Pacific began laying track from Omaha to the west while the Central Pacific headed east from Sacramento. Two railroad companies took up the challenge. Tunnels would have to be blasted out of the mountains, rivers bridged and wilderness tamed. This log jam was broken in 1861 with the secession of the Southern states from the Union that allowed Congress to select a route running through Nebraska to California.Ĭonstruction of the railroad presented a daunting task requiring the laying of over 2000 miles of track that stretched through some the most forbidding landscape on the continent. The Northern statesįavored a northern route while the Southern states pushed for a southern route. Traveling either of these could take four months or more to complete.Īlthough everyone thought a transcontinental railroad was a good idea, deep disagreement arose over its path. At that time only two routes to the West were available: by wagon across the plains or by ship around South America. Of gold in California in 1848 that brought thousands to the West Coast. The need for such a link was dramatized by the discovery A railroad linking America's east and west coasts had been a dream almost since the steam locomotive made its first appearance in the early 1830s.
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