First transcontinental railroad


America's first transcontinental railroad was a continuous railroad line built between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa, with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. The rail line was built by three private companies over public lands provided by extensive U.S. land grants. Building was financed by both state and U.S. government subsidy bonds as well as by company-issued mortgage bonds. The Western Pacific Railroad Company built of track from the road's western terminus at Alameda/Oakland to Sacramento, California. The Central Pacific Railroad Company of California constructed east from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. The Union Pacific Railroad built from the road's eastern terminus at the Missouri River settlements of Council Bluffs and Omaha, Nebraska, westward to Promontory Summit.
The railroad opened for through traffic between Sacramento and Omaha on May 10, 1869, when CPRR President Leland Stanford ceremonially tapped the gold "Last Spike" with a silver hammer at Promontory Summit. In the following six months, the last leg from Sacramento to San Francisco Bay was completed. The resulting coast-to-coast railroad connection revolutionized the settlement and economy of the American West. It brought the western states and territories into alignment with the northern Union states and made transporting passengers and goods coast-to-coast considerably quicker, safer and less expensive.
The first transcontinental rail passengers arrived at the Pacific Railroad's original western terminus at the Alameda Terminal on September 6, 1869, where they transferred to the steamer Alameda for transport across the Bay to San Francisco. The road's rail terminus was moved two months later to the Oakland Long Wharf, about a mile to the north, when its expansion was completed and opened for passengers on November 8, 1869. Service between San Francisco and Oakland Pier continued to be provided by ferry.
The CPRR eventually purchased of UPRR-built grade from Promontory Summit to Ogden, Utah Territory, which became the interchange point between trains of the two roads. The transcontinental line became popularly known as the Overland Route after the name of the principal passenger rail service to Chicago that operated over the length of the line until 1962.

Overall significance

Railroads not only increased the speed of transport, they also dramatically lowered its cost. The first transcontinental railroad resulted in passengers and freight being able to cross the country in a matter of days instead of months and at one tenth the cost of stagecoach or wagon transport. With economical transportation in the West now farming, ranching and mining could be done at a profit. As a result, railroads transformed the country, particularly the West.
For example, before the railroads were built in the West, if a farmer were to ship a load of corn only 200 miles to Chicago, the shipping cost by wagon would exceed the price for which the corn could be sold. So, under such circumstances, farming could not be done at a profit. Mining and other economic activity in the West were similarly inhibited because of the high cost of wagon transportation. One Congressman, referring to the West, bluntly stated that, “All that land wasn’t worth ten cents until the railroads came.”
Freight rates by rail were a small fraction of what they had been with wagon transport. When the United States concluded the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, people thought that it would take 300 years to populate it. With the introduction of the railroad, it took only 30 years. The low cost of shipping by rail resulted in the Great American Desert becoming the great American breadbasket.

Origins

Among the early proponents of building a railroad line that would connect the coasts of the United States was Dr. Hartwell Carver, who in 1847 submitted to the U.S. Congress a "Proposal for a Charter to Build a Railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean", seeking a congressional charter to support his idea.

Preliminary exploration

Congress agreed to support the idea. Under the direction of the Department of War, the Pacific Railroad Surveys were conducted from 1853 through 1855. These included an extensive series of expeditions of the American West seeking possible routes. A report on the explorations described alternative routes and included an immense amount of information about the American West, covering at least. It included the region's natural history and illustrations of reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals.
The report did not include detailed topographic maps of potential routes needed to estimate the feasibility, cost and select the best route. However, the survey was detailed enough to determine that the best southern route lay south of the Gila River boundary with Mexico in mostly vacant desert, through the future territories of Arizona and New Mexico. This in part motivated the United States to complete the Gadsden Purchase.
In 1856, the Select Committee on the Pacific Railroad and Telegraph of the US House of Representatives published a report recommending support for a proposed Pacific railroad bill:

Possible routes

The U.S. Congress was strongly divided on where the eastern terminus of the railroad should be—in a southern or northern city. Three routes were considered:
Once the central route was chosen, it was immediately obvious that the western terminus should be Sacramento. But there was considerable difference of opinion about the eastern terminus. Three locations along of Missouri River were considered:
Council Bluffs had several advantages: It was well north of the Civil War fighting in Missouri; it was the shortest route to South Pass in the Rockies in Wyoming; and it would follow a fertile river that would encourage settlement. Durant had hired the future president Abraham Lincoln in 1857 when he was an attorney to represent him in a business matter about a bridge over the Missouri. Now Lincoln was responsible for choosing the eastern terminus, and he relied on Durant's counsel.

Key people

Asa Whitney

One of the most prominent champions of the central route railroad was Asa Whitney. He envisioned a route from Chicago and the Great Lakes to northern California, paid for by the sale of land to settlers along the route. Whitney traveled widely to solicit support from businessmen and politicians, printed maps and pamphlets, and submitted several proposals to Congress, all at his own expense. In June 1845, he led a team along part of the proposed route to assess its feasibility.
Legislation to begin construction of the Pacific Railroad was first introduced to Congress by Representative Zadock Pratt. Congress did not immediately act on Whitney's proposal.

Theodore Judah

was a fervent supporter of the central route railroad. He lobbied vigorously in favor of the project and undertook the survey of the route through the rugged Sierra Nevada, one of the chief obstacles of the project.
In 1852, Judah was chief engineer for the newly formed Sacramento Valley Railroad, the first railroad built west of the Mississippi River. Although the railroad later went bankrupt once the easy placer gold deposits around Placerville, California, were depleted, Judah was convinced that a properly financed railroad could pass from Sacramento through the Sierra Nevada mountains to reach the Great Basin and hook up with rail lines coming from the East.
In 1856, Judah wrote a 13,000-word proposal in support of a Pacific railroad and distributed it to Cabinet secretaries, congressmen and other influential people. In September 1859, Judah was chosen to be the accredited lobbyist for the Pacific Railroad Convention, which indeed approved his plan to survey, finance and engineer the road. Judah returned to Washington in December 1859. He had a lobbying office in the United States Capitol, received an audience with President James Buchanan, and represented the Convention before Congress.
Judah returned to California in 1860. He continued to search for a more practical route through the Sierra suitable for a railroad. In mid-1860, local miner Daniel Strong had surveyed a route over the Sierra for a wagon toll road, which he realized would also suit a railroad. He described his discovery in a letter to Judah. Also in 1860, Charles Marsh, a surveyor, civil engineer and water company owner, met with civil engineer Judah. Marsh, who had already surveyed a potential railroad route between Sacramento and Nevada City, California, a decade earlier, went with Judah into the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There they examined the Henness Pass Turnpike Company's route. They measured elevations and distances and discussed the possibility of a transcontinental railroad. Both were convinced that it could be done. Judah, Marsh and Strong then met with merchants and businessmen to solicit investors in their proposed railroad.
From January or February 1861 until July, Judah and Strong led a 10-person expedition to survey the route for the railroad over the Sierra Nevada through Clipper Gap and Emigrant Gap, over Donner Pass, and south to Truckee. They discovered a way across the Sierras that was gradual enough to be made suitable for a railroad, although it still needed a lot of work.