4 0 WILD WEST JUNE 2019
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he construction work was long, intensive M
and often dangerous. It began in 1863
and took a half-dozen years to finish.
Three private companies hired the laborers, who
spanned more than 1,900 miles across public
tracts provided by major U.S. land grants. The
Western Pacific Railroad Co. laid 132 miles of
tracks, from Alameda to Sacramento, Calif. The
Central Pacific Railroad, building east from Sacra-
mento, built 690 miles of the line. Finally, working
west from Council Bluffs (near Omaha, Neb.), the
Union Pacific provided the remaining 1,085 miles of rails.
This year communities from California to Nebraska
and beyond are marking the 150th anniversary
of the completion of this monumental project—
the world’s first transcontinental railroad. The
eastward- and westward-building lines met in
a “Last Spike” (or “Golden Spike”) ceremony
on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, Utah
Territory. “The work is finished,” declared James
Campbell, the Central Pacific’s superintendent of
rolling stock. “Little you realize what you have done.
You have this day changed the path of commerce and
finance of the whole world.”
T
