Do you know what railroad was an important part of history? The Transcontinental Railroad was! Thousands of people worked hard. Do you think this job was easy? To tell you the truth, it was not! Here is how this important railroad became an idea, what the laborers ate, what happened when they were building, and how they celebrated.
Way back in the 1800’s, settlers were moving west in hope of new land. With this, the trip was made difficult. So following in 1860, a man named Theodore Judah thought that the Donner Pass would be a good route for a railroad. In the next two years, according to “The Transcontinental Railroad,” by John Perritano, “On July 1, 1862, just over a year after the war began, President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act.” That was when the two companies, the Union Pacific, and the Central Pacific, started the Transcontinental Railroad.
All this talk about business, how about some food? Here are what the workers ate along the way. The Irish laborers would eat boiled beef, potatoes, beans, bread, butter, and drink black coffee. The Chinese workers ate fish, fruit, rice, cabbage, pork, oysters, bamboo shoots, and drank tea. In the book, “You Wouldn’t Want to Work on the Railroad,” the tea the Chinese drank included tons of sugar, so it would stay sweet.
The Union Pacific and Central Pacific had their problems in between. Let’s see what they were.The East Side: The Union Pacific started building in 1863, Omaha, Nebraska, but the Civil war caused them to move slowly. They wanted to start earlier for more land and money.
The West Side: At the time of 1865, the Civil war ended and the Central Pacific decided to start building in Sacramento, California. The Central Pacific hired thousands of Chinese laborers by 1867. The Central Pacific had a harder job because they had to pass through the Sierra Nevada mountains.
In the summer of 1867, the Union Pacific had crossed more land than the Central Pacific. It became a race now. The track was being built so fast, that they built temporary bridges, and unsafe tunnels. Soon, the two companies became close enough in 1869, that President Ulysses S. Grant decided for them to meet at Promontory Point, Utah. Finally, on May 10, 1869, the tracks were connected, and the golden spike was hammered in. Telegraph officers sent the message, and hats went flying.
Many workers were put to the test. Between diseases, and the heat, the Transcontinental Railroad was hard. Now when you look to the future, you’ll remember, “All of this started with the spark of the Transcontinental Railroad.”
Works Cited
Graham, Ian. You Wouldn’t Want to Work on the Railroad! Children’s Press, 2000.
Perritano, John. The Transcontinental Railroad. Scholastic, March 1st, 2010.
History.com. “Transcontinental Railroad Connected the United States from East to