50 Fun Facts About Transcontinental Railroad

In which year was the first transcontinental railroad completed?

The Central Pacific and Union Pacific met at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869, six years after ground was broken in Sacramento.

At which Utah Territory location did the two railroads meet?

The site became Golden Spike National Historic Site in 1957 and was redesignated a National Historical Park in 2019.

Who ceremonially drove the golden Last Spike?

Stanford, president of the Central Pacific, tapped the spike with a silver hammer; accounts say he and David Hewes actually missed it.

Which president signed the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 into law?

Lincoln signed it on July 1, 1862, once southern secession had removed the opposition that killed earlier bills.

What one-word telegraph message announced the line's completion?

The hammers and spike were wired to the telegraph so each stroke would click at stations nationwide; operators ended up sending the clicks by hand.

Roughly how long was the continuous line from Council Bluffs to San Francisco Bay?

Three companies built it: Western Pacific (132 miles), Central Pacific (690) and Union Pacific (1,085).

Which Central Pacific locomotive took part in the Last Spike ceremony?

Central Pacific No. 60 Jupiter faced Union Pacific No. 119, both 4-4-0 types built in 1868.

What number did the Union Pacific locomotive at the ceremony carry?

Replicas of No. 119 and the Jupiter are fired up by the National Park Service at the Promontory site.

Which group of workers laid the Central Pacific's last two rails at Promontory?

The Union Pacific's final rails were laid by Irishmen; the Central Pacific's by Chinese crews, who did most of its heavy manual labor.

What did the Central Pacific's workers from China commonly get called at the time?

China itself was referred to as the "Celestial Kingdom"; the railroad even set up recruiting in Canton once the crews proved themselves.

Which Big Four member initially doubted the laborers from China were big enough for the work?

After a short trial Crocker reversed course and hired as many Chinese workers as he could find.

Who served as treasurer among the Central Pacific's Big Four?

Stanford was president, Huntington vice president, Hopkins treasurer and Crocker construction supervisor.

Which engineer surveyed the Sierra route and lobbied Congress for the railroad?

Judah was chief engineer of the Sacramento Valley Railroad in 1852, the first railroad west of the Mississippi.

What disease killed the Central Pacific's original chief engineer in 1863?

He caught it crossing the Isthmus of Panama on his way to New York to raise money to buy out the Big Four.

What was Union Pacific financier Thomas "Doc" Durant's former profession?

Durant was nominally only a vice president but ran the company, installing figureheads like John Adams Dix as president.

Which Union general served as Union Pacific's chief engineer during construction?

Dodge found a pass through the Laramie Mountains in 1865 while fighting Native American tribes; it became part of the route.

Which scandal over inflated construction contracts ensnared Union Pacific figures?

Crédit Mobilier charged Union Pacific often twice the customary rate for track work; Durant was eventually removed from the company.

How much per mile did the government pay in bonds for track laid on level ground?

The rate doubled to $32,000 in the foothills and tripled to $48,000 in the mountains, an incentive to call terrain mountainous.

Land grants to the railroads were laid out in what pattern?

Railroads got the odd-numbered sections and the government kept the even ones, for 10 miles on each side of the track.

The combined land grants to the two railroads were larger than which state?

Federal grants totaled about 130 million acres, with state grants adding roughly 50 million more.

On what date did the Central Pacific break ground in Sacramento?

Governor Leland Stanford turned the first earth; nearly every tool and rail had to be shipped around Cape Horn or via Panama.

The Central Pacific crossed the Sierra over which pass?

The line climbed from 40 feet at Sacramento to roughly 7,000 feet at the summit in about 90 miles.

How long was the Central Pacific's Summit Tunnel (Tunnel No. 6)?

Through solid granite, progress was only about a foot per day per face, so a 125-foot vertical shaft was sunk to open two more faces.

What newly invented explosive sped up Union Pacific tunnelling in Weber Canyon?

It expedited the work but caused some fatal accidents; most rock was still broken with black powder.

How far did the timber snow sheds on the Sierra grade stretch?

Built between Blue Cañon and Truckee from 1867, the sheds used 2,500 men and six material trains and were finished in 1869.

How much track did the Central Pacific lay in its record day of April 1869?

The push on April 28, 1869, settled a $10,000 bet and inspired the children's book Ten Mile Day.

What were the mobile tent towns that followed the Union Pacific railhead nicknamed?

The name later became the title of an AMC drama in which Colm Meaney played Thomas Durant.

Which river valley did the Union Pacific follow west across Nebraska?

The valley rose only about 6 feet per mile, letting crews lay a mile of track a day or more in 1866.

Which Wyoming railroad town became a major Union Pacific center at 6,070 feet elevation?

Cheyenne sat 35 miles from Evans Pass and was linked to Denver by a connecting line in 1870.

Which religious leader contracted with Union Pacific to supply around 2,000 workers?

Mormon workers also signed the Thousand Mile Tree in Weber Canyon, a lone tree 1,000 miles from Omaha.

What track gauge did the transcontinental railroad adopt?

Much of the South used a 5-foot gauge; the federal choice helped make 4 ft 8½ in the American standard.

Before a bridge opened in 1872, how did Union Pacific trains cross the Missouri at Omaha?

When the river froze in winter, the ferries were replaced by sleighs.

What name did the completed line later take from its principal passenger service?

The Overland service to Chicago ran over the length of the line until 1962.

Where has the original golden spike been kept since David Hewes donated it in 1898?

Hewes gave it to Stanford University in 1898; a second "Last" golden spike is on display at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento.

Whose idea was it to finish the railroad with a spike made of gold?

Hewes, a San Francisco financier, had it cast at the William T. Garratt Foundry with officers' names engraved on two sides.

What wood was the special polished tie used at the Last Spike ceremony?

The laurel tie was destroyed in the fires that followed the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Which state supplied a silver spike for the ceremony?

Arizona Territory sent a blended iron, silver and gold spike, and the San Francisco News Letter a second, lower-grade gold one.

What was the purity of the gold used in the golden spike?

It was copper-alloyed gold weighing just over 14 troy ounces, tapped into a pre-drilled hole with a silver maul.

In what year did the U.S. Postal Service issue stamps for the golden spike's 150th anniversary?

The three stamps pictured the Jupiter, locomotive No. 119 and the spike itself.

Why were the rails at the 1869 meeting point pulled up in 1942?

The Lucin Cutoff had bypassed the summit in 1904; removal began with a ceremonial "undriving" at the Last Spike site.

Which French novel was partly inspired by the joining of the rails?

Jules Verne published it in 1873, four years after the Promontory ceremony.

Which 1924 John Ford silent film dramatized the building of the railroad?

Some of the film's cooks were Chinese laborers who had worked on the Central Pacific section decades earlier.

Which rail baron gained control of Union Pacific after the Panic of 1873?

Gould picked up Union Pacific and Western Union as bargains after Durant left the company.

Who chose Omaha as the site of the Union Pacific's transfer depot?

Durant had hired Lincoln as a lawyer in 1857 over a Missouri River bridge matter, and Lincoln relied on his counsel.

Coast-to-coast travel time fell from six months or more to roughly how long?

Freight costs fell to about a tenth of stagecoach or wagon rates, turning the "Great American Desert" into farmland.

Which general wrote in 1867 that "thieving, ragged Indians" would not stop the railroads?

Sherman's first postwar command made protecting railroad construction his top priority.

Which Union Pacific engineer resigned in 1865 over a routing dispute with Durant?

Durant then hired his former M&M engineer Grenville Dodge and the line began its dash west.

What did the Central Pacific name its first sleeping car, delivered in 1868?

It arrived in Sacramento on June 8, 1868; by late 1869 the company ran 162 locomotives.

The Central Pacific's president was California's first governor from which party?

Stanford rowed to his 1862 inauguration because of the Great Flood; he later co-founded Stanford University with his wife Jane.

Which Sacramento hardware merchant heard Judah's pitch at the St. Charles Hotel in 1860?

Huntington invited Judah to his office and lined up four partners: Hopkins, Bailey, Stanford and Crocker.