Over the next seven years, the two companies would race toward each other from Sacramento, California on the one side to Omaha, Nebraska on the other, struggling against great risks before they met at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869.
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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 ...
In 1862, Congress passed the Pacific Railway Act, which designated the 32nd parallel as the initial transcontinental route, and provided government bonds to fund the project and large grants of lands for rights-of-way.
While much of the original transcontinental railroad tracks are still in use, the complete, intact line fell out of operation in 1904, when a shorter route bypassed Promontory Summit.