May 10: U.S. Transcontinental Railroad Completed (1869)
Prayer Idea
Pray for people who build and maintain railroads and work on trains.
History Note
In 1862 the U.S. Congress passed a law giving the Union Pacific Railroad authority to build a railroad west from Omaha, Nebraska. It gave the Central Pacific Railroad authority to build a line east from Sacramento, California. The two companies were to meet somewhere in between.
Work began during the Civil War. Each company hired thousands of workers from many ethnic backgrounds. After the war, the Union Pacific hired many Irish immigrants and veterans of the Civil War. The Central Pacific found that Chinese immigrants did excellent work. They hired immigrants living in California and recruited men from China.
Work on the railroad was hard and often dangerous. It took physical manpower, horsepower, explosives, plows, scrapers, picks, shovels, and drills. Sledges, wagons, locomotives, and train cars carried supplies for the work and for the workers. With teamwork and hard labor, they crossed canyons, deserts, rivers, and mountains.
In May of 1869, two months after Ulysses S. Grant became president, the crews finally came together at Promontory Summit, Utah. The Union Pacific had laid 1,086 miles of track. The Central Pacific had laid 689 miles.
On May 10, one thousand people gathered to celebrate the completion of the transcontinental railroad. Among them were railroad construction workers, railroad and government officials, members of the 21st U.S. Infantry Regiment, and interested citizens. Irish track layers laid the last rail for the Union Pacific and Chinese workers laid the last rail for the Central Pacific.
The ceremony began at noon. Central Pacific president Leland Stanford used a silverplated hammer to tap two golden spikes into a special railroad tie. Union Pacific vice president Thomas Durant tapped in a silver spike and a gold and silver plated iron spike.
After this ceremony, workers removed the special tie and replaced it with a pine one. Construction workers drove in three iron spikes. A worker handed Stanford a real iron spike and a hammer like those usually used to drive them in. The spike and the hammer were wired to the transcontinental telegraph line, so that Americans far away could “hear” the actual completion of the transcontinental railroad.
Stanford took a swing. He hit the tie, but missed the spike. Durant took a swing. He even missed the tie. A railroad construction worker had to drive in the last spike. The telegraph operator sent out the message “D-O-N-E” at 12:47 p.m. The massive project was finished at last.
Former Civil War photographer Andrew J. Russell worked as an official Union Pacific Railroad photographer. Taking photographs in the 1800s was a slow and difficult process. Russell took 650 10” x 13” glass plate photographs during the construction of the transcontinental railroad, including this one of the ceremony on May 10, 1869. Image courtesy the Yale Collection of Western Americana.
Learn More
This video features a reenactment of the 1869 ceremony on the 150th anniversary in 2019.
Find other resources at Homeschool History.
