Was the Central Pacific built by many immigrants including the Chinese?

Less than two years later, almost 90 percent of the Central Pacific workforce was Chinese; the rest were of European-American descent, mostly Irish. At its highest point, between 10,000 and 15,000 Chinese were working on the Central Pacific, with perhaps as many as 20,000 in total over time.



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Beginning in 1863, the Union Pacific, employing more than 8,000 Irish, German, and Italian immigrants, built west from Omaha, Nebraska; the Central Pacific, whose workforce included over 10,000 Chinese laborers, built eastward from Sacramento, California.

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He told President Andrew Johnson that the Chinese were indispensable to building the railroad: They were “quiet, peaceable, patient, industrious and economical.” In a stockholder report, Stanford described construction as a “herculean task” and said it had been accomplished thanks to the Chinese, who made up 90% of the ...

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The hiring of Chinese-American workers became a crucial part of the construction of the railroad, and in the end had a profound effect on the United States' development as a nation, its immigration policies, and its Asian-American population.

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They would next find work on the railroads in the West, especially Texas. More than 1,200 Chinese laborers helped build the Southern Pacific Railroad from Los Angeles to El Paso, completed in May 1881. When the job was done, about 300 Chinese decided to stay in El Paso.

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Between 1865-1869, 10,000 -12,000 Chinese were involved in the building of the western leg of the Central Pacific Railroad. The work was backbreaking and highly dangerous. Approximately 1,200 died while building the Transcontinental Railroad. Over a thousand Chinese had their bones shipped back to China to be buried.

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Volpe's remarks referenced some of the backbreaking and deadly work done on the Central Pacific by a labor force that was almost 90 percent Chinese, many of them migrants from China, ineligible to become U.S. naturalized citizens under federal law.

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Many workers contributed to the construction of railroads. On the East Coast, Native Americans, recently freed black people, and white laborers worked on the railroads. On the West Coast, many of the railroad workers were Chinese immigrants.

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What was not true about Chinese immigrants who worked on building the Transcontinental Railroad? They worked few hours each day.

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