Transcontinental Railroad

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Transcontinental Railroad
By Cadet McDaniel
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• The First Transcontinental Railroad in the United
  States was built across North America in the
  1860s, linking the railway network of the Eastern
  United States with California on the Pacific
  coast.

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• Ceremonially completed on May 10, 1869, at the
  famous "golden spike" event at Promontory Summit,
  Utah, it created a nation-wide mechanized
  transportation network that revolutionized the
  population and economy of the American West.

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• Authorized by the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 and
  heavily backed by the federal government, it was
  the culmination of a decades-long movement to
  build such a line and was one of the crowning
  achievements of the presidency of Abraham
  Lincoln, completed four years after his death.

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• The building of the railway required enormous
  feats of engineering and labor in the crossing of
  plains and high mountains by the Union Pacific
  Railroad and Central Pacific Railroad, the two
  privately chartered federally backed enterprises
  that built the line westward and eastward
  respectively.

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• The railroad was considered the greatest American
  technological feat of the 19th century. It served
  as a vital link for trade, commerce and travel
  that joined the eastern and western halves of
  late 19th century United States.

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• Going from Council Bluffs, Iowa, it followed the
  Platte River through Nebraska, left the
  traditional route to cross the Rocky Mountains at
  the Great Divide Basin in Wyoming and then cut
  down through northern Utah and Nevada in the
  Great Basin before crossing the Sierras to
  Sacramento.

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