It had nearly a billion dollars' worth of American guns and equipment strewn along a segment of the Trans-Siberian Railway between Vladivostok and Nikolsk.

President Woodrow Wilson had decided that the United States, still at war in Europe, must intervene in another part of the world to protect its investments. The next evening, he was met at the Kansas City train station by Secretary of War Newton Baker, who informed Graves that his career was taking a new turn. On August 2, however, Graves got a specially coded message at Camp Fremont in California, ordering him to a meeting in Kansas City. Army's Eighth Division, which would soon go to France to fight the Germans in the Great War. He had just been promoted to major general and assigned command of the U.S. Your browser does not support the audio element.American troops parade in Vladivostok, August 1918. Listen to a recorded reading of this page:.Take a ten question quiz about this page.It was later, in November of 1869, when the Central Pacific connected San Francisco to Sacramento.Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker.

The Central Pacific Railroad was controlled by four men called the 'Big Four'.

The total length of the First Transcontinental Railroad was 1,776 miles.

The transcontinental railroad was also called the Pacific Railroad and the Overland Route.

The Pony Express traveled a similar route to the central route and helped to prove that the route was passable in winter.

Interesting Facts about the First Transcontinental Railroad You can see it today at Stanford University in California.ĭriving the Golden Spike on 10th May, 1869 This final spike was called the 'Golden Spike' or 'The Final Spike'. Leland Stanford, governor of California and president of the Central Pacific Railroad, drove in the last spike. The two railroads finally met at Promontory Summit, Utah on May 10, 1869. Most of the Central Pacific Railroad was built by Chinese immigrants. In Utah, a lot of the track was built by Mormon workers. The majority of the workers on the Union Pacific Railroad were Irish laborers, many who had served in both the Union and the Confederate armies. Also, a lot of the land that was 'granted' to the railroad by the government was actually Native American land. As the Native Americans came to realize the threat to their way of life that the 'Iron Horse' was going to bring, they began to raid the railroad work sites. While the Central Pacific Railroad had to deal with mountains and snow, the Union Pacific Railroad was challenged by Native Americans raids. They were able to blast around one foot per day on average. It took a long time to build the tunnels. The longest tunnel built was 1659 feet long. The Central Pacific Railroad had to blast a number of tunnels through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. A lot of times the only way to travel over the mountains was to go through the mountains by blasting a tunnel. Weather conditions were especially tough in the mountains during the winter. The central route was eventually chosen by Congress.īuilding the railroad was tough, hard work. This route would stretch across Texas, New Mexico, and end up in Los Angeles, California.

The other route was the 'southern route'.

It would begin in Omaha, Nebraska and end up in Sacramento, California. It followed much the same route as the Oregon Trail.

One route was called the 'central route'.

There were two main routes along which people wanted the first railroad to be built. He surveyed the Sierra Nevada Mountains and found a pass where the railroad could be built. However, in the 1860s Theodore Judah began to lobby for a railroad. Asa tried hard for many years to get Congress to pass an act to build the railroad, but failed. One of the first promoters of the railroad was a merchant named Asa Whitney. The first talk of a transcontinental railroad started around 1830. In addition to people, things like mail, supplies, and trade goods could now be shipped across the country in just a few days. They could now travel faster, safer, and cheaper by train. No longer would people travel in long wagon trains that took months to reach California. The First Transcontinental Railroad stretched from the East Coast of the United States to the West Coast. First Transcontinental Railroad History >

United states railroad story