Pacific Railway.
The greatest of American railroad enterprises undertaken up to that time was the construction of a railway over the great plains and lofty mountain-ranges between the
Missouri River and the
Pacific Ocean.
As early as 1846 such a work was publicly advocated by
Asa Whitney.
In 1849, after the discovery of gold in
California promised a rapid accumulation of wealth and population on the
Pacific coast,
Senator Thomas H. Benton introduced a bill into Congress providing for preliminary steps in such an undertaking.
In 1853 Congress passed an act providing for surveys of various routes by the corps of topographical engineers.
By midsummer, 1853, four expeditions for this purpose were organized to explore as many different routes.
One, under
Major Stevens, was instructed to explore a northern route, from the
upper Mississippi to Puget's Sound, on the
Pacific coast.
A second expedition, under the direction of
Lieutenant Whipple, was directed to cross the continent from a line adjacent to the 36th parallel of N. lat.
It was to proceed from the
Mississippi, through Walker's Pass of the
Rocky Mountains, and strike the
Pacific near
San Pedro,
Los Angeles, or
San Diego. A third, under
Captain Gunnison, was to proceed through the
Rocky Mountains near the head-waters of the
Rio del Norte, by way of the Hueferno River and the
Great Salt Lake in
Utah.
The fourth was to leave the
southern Mississippi, and reach the
Pacific somewhere in
Lower California—perhaps
San Diego.
These surveys cost about $1,000,000. Nothing further, however, was done, owing to political dissensions between the
North and the
South, until 1862 and 1864, when Congress, in the midst of the immense strain upon the resources of the government in carrying on the war, passed acts granting subsidies for the work, in the form of 6 per cent. gold bonds, at the rate of $16,000 a mile from the
Missouri River to the eastern base of the
Rocky Mountains, $48,000 a mile for 300 miles through those mountains, $32.000 a mile between the
Rocky Mountains and the
Sierra Nevada, and $16,000 a mile from the western slope of the latter range to the sea. In
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addition to these subsidies, Congress granted about 25,000,000 acres of land along the line of the road.
Some modifications were afterwards made in these grants.
Work was begun on the railway in 1863, by two companies—the “
Central Pacific,” proceeding from
California and working eastward, and the “Union Pacific,” working westward.
The road was completed in 1869, when a continuous line of railroad communication between the
Atlantic  |
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One of the first trains on the Pacific Railroad. |
and Pacific oceans was perfected.
The entire length of the road, exclusive of its branches, is about 2,000 miles. It crosses nine distinct mountain-ranges, the highest elevation on the route being 7,123 feet, at Rattlesnake Pass, west of the
Laramie Plains.
The route from New York to
San Francisco, by way of
Chicago and
Omaha, is travelled in six or seven days, the distance being about 3,400 miles. Another railroad subsidized by the government, and called the “Northern Pacific Railroad,” to extend from
Lake Superior to Puget's Sound, on the
Pacific, was begun in 1870.
