Wild West – June 2019

4 2 WILD WEST JUNE 2019

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(see “Working on the Railroad the Chinese Way,”
by Robert L. Foster, in the June 2010 Wild West
or online at HistoryNet.com). Hastily built rail-
road towns sprang up along the route, many prov-
ing temporary, though others remained long
after the workers moved on, some through today.
For the May 10, 1869, ceremony at Promontory
Summit two steam engines—the Central Pacific’s
No. 60 (aka Jupiter) and the Union Pacific’s No. 119
—were brought nose to nose, symbolically link-
ing the country. “The long-looked-for moment has

arrived,” The New York Times reported the next day.

“The construction of the Pacific Railroad is un fait

accompli. The inhabitants of the Atlantic seaboard

and the dwellers on the Pacific slopes are hence-

forth emphatically one people.”

Certainly most Americans had reason to cele-

brate—though some Indian tribes were none too

keen on the development. The first transconti-

nental railroad opened the West to many people

who wouldn’t have dared venture there by over-

land wagon or stagecoach to either settle or just visit.

Following Their Tracks

Above: Indians and buffalo

flee as the locomotives first

meet on the transcontinental

railroad. Right: Leland

Stanford was one of the

“Big Four” (with Collis

Huntington, Mark Hopkins

and Charles Crocker) who

built the Central Pacific

Railroad. Far right:

Promontory Summit was

a busy spot in May 1869.

Below: Thomas Clark

Durant, as vice president of

the Union Pacific, furiously

pushed construction and

created the financial

structure that led to the

Crédit Mobilier scandal.