Who drove the last stake into the Railroad?

Roanoke Rapids Herald (Roanoke, Rapids, NC), Image 6. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. The crowd cheers as Governor Leland Stanford drives the Golden Spike at Promontory Summit, Utah to complete the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869.



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In 1870 it took approximately seven days and cost as little as $65 for a ticket on the transcontinental line from New York to San Francisco; $136 for first class in a Pullman sleeping car; $110 for second class; and $65 for a space on a third- or “emigrant”-class bench.

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1869: Four years after the Civil War, the United States is joined from coast to coast by a transcontinental railroad, as a ceremonial final spike is driven at Promontory Summit, Utah.

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Transcontinental railways are railroads that run across continents. The Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR) in Russia is the world's longest railway system.

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In 1862 Congress passed the Pacific Railroad Acts which designated the 32nd parallel as the initial transcontinental route and gave huge grants of lands for rights-of-way.

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The rails were removed in 1942 for use in the war effort. Today cattle graze where once thousands labored to open the West to industry and commerce. The Transcontinental Railroad Back Country Byway is interpreted at over 30 sites along the grade.

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Accidents were compounded by running trains in both directions on single tracks and hasty and cheap trestle construction. In 1875, there were 1,201 train accidents. Five years later, in 1880, that rate had increased to 8,216 in one year.

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