Connecting East and West

Before the railroad, it took people weeks, months, and sometimes even years to travel from the eastern states to the West. There had to be a faster way to travel.

In 1862, Congress selected two companies to build the first railroad across the country--the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad.

The Central Pacific Railroad began building tracks in Sacramento, California and headed east, while the Union Pacific Railroad started from Omaha, Nebraska, and headed west.

Click image to enlarge.

By Cave cattum [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], from Wikimedia Commons

Both companies began building the railroad in 1863, and it became a race between them for who could build more tracks faster. Whoever built the most tracks received more land. For each mile of track laid, twenty square miles of land was given to the company.

It took six years to build the railroad, which was finally finished in 1869. The two tracks met up in Utah where the last "golden spike" was driven in by Leland Stanford, the president of the Central Pacific Railroad. In all, 1,776 miles of track had been laid by the two companies. This accomplishment connected the eastern part of the U.S. to the West.

There was now a faster, cheaper, and safer way to travel.