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Of the Big Four, Hopkins’s name is known for the hotel in San Francisco. Crocker is pretty generally unknown today. Huntington is remembered primarily because of the town and beach named for him. But “Stanford” is a name known to everybody, because he had the good sense to found a university and name it after his son, who died in 1884, just two months shy of his sixteenth birthday. The next year, Stanford founded Leland Stanford Junior University. From then until its opening in 1891, he was active in setting the curriculum and picking the faculty and administration for what became one of America’s and the world’s finest institutions. Because of it, not because of the CP or the SP or the governorship or the long period in the Senate, Stanford’s name is remembered today.
THE Ames brothers have also faded from general recognition. They thought they would make money and get great credit from their association with the Union Pacific. And the railroad did commission a famous architect, H. H. Richardson, to design a monument to the two men, sixty-five feet high. It stands at Sherman Summit, right beside the grade that used to carry the tracks of the road. But at the beginning of the twentieth century, the road was relocated southward (which also cut out the Dale Creek Bridge). The monument stands today, isolated and alone even though it is but a mile or so from Interstate 80 coming out of Cheyenne and headed toward Ogden, and has its own exit on the highway. With a sign. But only a handful of hard-core railroad buffs go there, and most of them once only. In Maury Klein’s words, the Ames brothers “risked their fortunes and their reputations on the grandest enterprise yet undertaken by Americans. In return they received not praise but censure as participants in the major scandal of an age busy with scandals.”14
Doc Durant got involved in the UP not so much to become famous as to make money. More than anyone else on the line, he is associated with getting it built fast. He insisted on speed in everything. He worked hard at it constantly from 1864 to 1869 and once said he did not remove his clothes for a week. He was the one who had the honor of tapping in the Golden Spike. But he was forced off the board in May 1869. His health broke. He lost almost everything he owned in the Panic of 1873, and his grandiose scheme to develop the iron and timber resources of the Adirondacks, including a railroad from Saratoga across the St. Lawrence into Canada, failed. He lived his later years in the Adirondacks and died there on October 5, 1885, neither rich nor famous. He had made a lot of mistakes, done lots of things wrong, but this must be said of Doc: without him, don’t ask me how they would have built the Union Pacific in so short a time.
Grenville Dodge rightly gets most of the credit for building the UP. It was a stupendous project and his great ambition. In January 1870, he resigned as chief engineer of the UP and soon became chief engineer of the Texas and Pacific Railway (it collapsed in the Panic of 1873) and then joined with Jay Gould in developing railroads in the Southwest. During the next ten years, he was associated with building nearly nine thousand miles of road. After the war with Spain, he was a partner in the Cuba Railroad Company and helped build the line from Santa Clara to Santiago.
The Cuba Railroad was his last. By that time, his surveys alone totaled over sixty thousand miles. Not many men, in his lifetime or later, spent so many nights sleeping on the ground. But he was also active as a railroad lobbyist and as a projector, builder, financier, and director of railroads. His record places him high among the railroad builders of the world.
In his retirement, Dodge was active in the Society of the Army of the Tennessee and other patriotic organizations. He was the richest man in Iowa, but with nothing like the fortunes of the Big Four. He lived in a grand Victorian house in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Though it was modest by San Francisco or New York standards, it was entirely fitting for Dodge, who had from his office window something that no one on either the West or the East Coast had—a view of his beloved Missouri River. He died on January 3, 1916.
THE dreamers, led by Judah; the politicians, led by Lincoln; the financiers, led by the congressmen and the Ames brothers, Durant, and Huntington; the surveyors, led by Dodge and Dey and Judah; the generals, led by Grant and Sherman; the engineers, led by Clement, Montague, Reed, and others; the construction bosses, led by Strobridge and the Casement brothers; the railroad men; the foremen; the Chinese, the Irish, and all the others who picked up a shovel or a sledgehammer or a rail; and the American people who insisted that it had to be done and who paid for it, built the transcontinental railroad.
None of this might have happened if different choices had been made, by any one of the foregoing groups and individuals. But a choice made is made, it cannot be changed. Things happened as they happened. It is possible to imagine all kinds of different routes across the continent, or a better way for the government to help private industry, or maybe to have the government build and own it. But those things didn’t happen, and what did take place is grand. So we admire those who did it—even if they were far from perfect—for what they were and what they accomplished and how much each of us owes them.
Abraham Lincoln and Dodge at the time of their first conversation, in 1859. Lincoln was a politician and a railroad lawyer running for president. He met Grenville Dodge in Council Bluffs, Iowa. His first words were, “Dodge, what’s the best route for a Pacific railroad to the West?” From then on, until his assassination, Lincoln was the number-one proponent and supporter of the railroad.
Theodore D. Judah (1826–1863). He founded the Central Pacific and discovered the way over the Sierra Nevada mountains. He and his wife, Anna, persuaded the U.S. Congress to fund the railroad with loans of bonds and gifts of alternate sections of land (no photograph of Anna has been found). More than any other individual he made the CP railroad a reality, although he did not live long enough to see a single rail spiked.
General Grenville M. Dodge (1831–1916). He was a Civil War hero and then chief engineer of the Union Pacific. He was the most influential person in building the railroad from Omaha to Promontory Point and was the man who found the line for it to go across the Black Hills and through Wyoming and Utah. In 1859, Dodge convinced Abraham Lincoln to build the road up the Platte River Valley and later got the President to support the 1862 and 1864 bills that made the road possible.
The Big Four of the Central Pacific (clockwise from top left): Leland Stanford (1824–1893), Collis P. Huntington (1821–1900), Charles Crocker (1822–1888), and Mark Hopkins (1814–1878). They were as stern and determined as they look, but they took great risks with their money and their time and energy to build the line. Stanford was president and the chief politician. Huntington borrowed the money for capital expenses in New York, Boston, and Washington, and lobbied Congress for more help. Crocker was in charge of construction. Hopkins handled the books. Together they reaped where they had sown.
General Jack Casement in Wyoming in 1868 poses on horseback in front of one of his construction trains. The Casements were in charge of laying the Union Pacific’s track and were simultaneously feared and respected by the workers.
Samuel B. Reed in Echo City, Nevada, in 1869. Reed was chief of construction for the UP, in charge of keeping the men building the road supplied with everything from food to rails, ties, spikes, and everything else. He was also responsible for keeping the graders, barge builders, tie cutters, and tunnel builders supplied.
The surveyors of the UP pose at their camp in Echo Canyon, Utah. They are formally dressed for the occasion. The surveyors came first. They laid out the line. Most of the time, they slept on the ground and did their best to avoid hostile Indians.
General and Republican presidential candidate Ulysses S. Grant and party at Fort Sanders, just south of Laramie, Wyoming, in 1868. Grant has both hands on the fence. General William T. Sherman, in profile, is in front of the door. Thomas “Doc” Durant, the sixth man from the right with his hands clasped, bends forward.
General Dodge and party crossed the continent in 1867. Back row: Lt. J. W. Wheelen; Lt. Col. J. K. Mizner; Dr. Henry C. Terry, assistant surgeon; John E. Corwith. Front row: David VanLennep, geologist; John R. Duff; General G. M. Dodge; Brigadier General John A. Rawlins, chief of staff; Major W. McK. Dunn, ADC to General Rawlins.
Some of the directors of the UP meet in their private car at Echo City, Utah. Silas Seymour is seated at the table, on the left, with Sidney Dillon seated beside him. Doc Durant is beside Dillon, with John Duff on the right. They were on their way to Promontory Summit for the driving of the last spike.
Burnettizing works of the UP at Omaha. This was one of three. Cottonwood ties went through the Burnettizing machine, which treated them by draining the water out of the lumber and putting a zinc solution in its place—otherwise the ties were too soft and perishable. The timbers about to go in are bridge timber; the men at the right are loading one into the works.
The first big bridge built by the UP was across the Loup River at today’s Columbus, Nebraska, where the Loup flows into the Platte River. The timbers were cut in Chicago. On top of the bridge is the telegraph line. The next photograph shows the interior of the structure.
Casement’s crew laying track in 1866. Sometimes they laid as much as two miles of track per day. For the sake of the photographer, the men are posed—about the only time they stood still.
On October 6, 1866, the UP tracks reach the one hundredth meridian, near Cozad, Nebraska. Some of the UP directors are posed under the sign. Doc Durant organized an excursion of reporters and politicians on the spot to celebrate and publicize reaching it.
Durant went beyond the end of the track to pose for a picture standing at the cross ties and emphasizing the theme of Westward the Course of Empire.
Hall’s Fill near Sherman Summit. At 8,242 feet, the summit was the highest point on the continental railroad. The UP had reached Cheyenne, Wyoming, in November 1867, and got to the summit in early April 1868.
The bridge over Dale Creek, four miles west of Sherman Summit. One UP engineer called it “a big bridge for a small brook that one could easily step over.” It was 126 feet above the streambed and 700 feet long, by far the biggest bridge of the UP. The workers had to dig cuts on both sides leading up to the bridge. It was sufficiently strong to carry a railroad (at four miles per hour, tops) and withstand Wyoming’s winds. It is gone today—the track runs south of it—but it was one of the greatest engineering feats of the nineteenth century.
A supply train being unloaded at the end of a track, at Mud Creek, near Fort Bridger, Wyoming.
A UP turntable in Rawlins Springs, Wyoming, 1868. All through Nebraska and Wyoming, Grenville Dodge laid out towns that became major centers for railroad repairs and workers, such as today’s Rawlins, Cheyenne, Green River, Laramie, and others.
Lewis Carmichael’s camp in Bitter Creek Valley, three miles east of Green River, Wyoming. Carmichael was a major contractor for the UP and made camp here because in the Wyoming desert between Rawlins and the Green River, water was a major problem.
A cut dug out by Carmichael’s crew in Bitter Creek.
Snow on the Laramie Plains, Wyoming, caused many difficulties for the UP. Sometimes—as for passengers traveling to Grant’s inaugural as president in March 1869, when this photograph was taken—the snow was so deep the passengers tried to shovel it away, or they attempted to walk along the tracks.
The UP’s temporary and permanent bridges cross Green River, Wyoming. Citadel Rock looms over the scene.
A UP construction train at Granite Canyon, Wyoming, chugs its way across what the railroad called the “Big Fill,” at Mile Post 536 from Omaha, between Cheyenne and Sherman Hill. The fill was 375 feet long and 50 feet deep, the largest fill on the UP.
The Petrified Fish Cut two miles west of Green River, Wyoming. Fills and cuts, then more fills and cuts—it seemed it would never end.
The engine Osceola passes through Fish Cut. The locomotive had been confiscated by the government during the Civil War and later turned over to the UP.
The UP’s steam shovel at Hanging Rock, in Echo Canyon, Utah. This was the only mechanical power used to move earth on the entire line.
A UP construction train passes through the cut at the head of Echo Canyon. The view is to the east.
On January 9, 1869, the UP’s track reached one thousand miles west of Omaha, in Weber Canyon, Utah. The railroad put up a sign to mark the achievement. The base of the tree became a picnic spot for tourists.
The UP telegraph corps at work in Weber Canyon. The telegraph line, required by the Pacific Railroad, ran parallel to the road and was critical to keeping New York informed and essential to keeping supplies coming.
Mormon graders at work in Echo Canyon. At the top, they are bringing down rocks for a fill and to make certain no rocks tumbled down to interfere with the scrapers working on the roadbed. In the next photograph, they are digging out a cut. Photos taken in 1868.
Mormons dig out the East Tunnel—the second of four. It was 772 feet long and consumed 1,064 kegs of black powder. As it was being dug, the UP built a flimsy eight-mile temporary track over a ridge. Photo taken 1869.
A UP train crosses the Weber River, having just gone through Tunnel 3. Photo taken 1869.
One of the Casements’ construction trains near Bear River City, Wyoming. Bear River City was one of the worst Hell on Wheels towns.
The dock of the steamships and the Pacific Rail Road Depot at the Sacramento River Wharf, where the CP began. Here rails, spikes, cars, and locomotives, shipped around South America from New York and other eastern ports, were unloaded and started toward the end of track.
Goods from railroad wharves at Sacramento being unloaded onto railroad cars for the CP. From here the material moved east toward the Sierra Nevada mountains.
The CP built the Long Ravine Bridge in September 1865. It was 120 feet long and fifty-six miles east of Sacramento.
Main Street in upper Cisco, California. The CP had unloaded material to take by wagon to the end of track. Cisco, ninety-two miles east of Sacramento, was reached in November 1866. Photo taken summer 1867.
At Sailor’s Spur, a cut is being made in the background and the debris being hauled by one-horse carts to the fill in the area in the foreground. This took enormous patience, since everything was being done by muscle power. Photo taken summer 1866.
Chinese laborers at work from both ends of the Heath’s Ravine Bank in the Sierra Nevada—one cartload of rock and dirt at a time. The trees have been cleared away on both sides of the fill; at the top center are trunks piled up to be cut at a sawmill for ties. Photo taken summer 1867.
Chinese laborers at work on the Prospect Hill cut in the Sierra Nevada.
A CP train going through Bloomer Cut, just beyond Newcastle, California. It was 63 feet deep and 800 feet long. Every foot of the way had to be blasted with gunpowder, and the CP used five hundred kegs of powder a day to do it. It was completed in the spring of 1865 and still stands today, although the line now runs through two tunnels to the north.
Fort Point Cut in the mountains. It was 70 feet deep and 600 feet long. The Chinese hauled away the debris layer after layer.
A freight train rounding Cape Horn, California. Cape Horn is just short (west) of Dutch Flat. It was three miles long. The Chinese laborers did the work of blasting out and making the roadbed. The slope was at an angle of seventy-five degrees and the American River was 1,200 to 2,200 feet below the line of the railroad. One magazine commented, “Good engineers considered the undertaking preposterous.” Work began in the summer of 1865 and was completed in the spring of 1866.
Taken in the summer of 1867, this photo shows a Chinese tea carrier outside one of the thirteen tunnels the CP drilled through the Sierra Nevada.
Another worker is hauling debris out of the east portal of the Summit Tunnel (length: 1,659 feet), which was drilled through both ends and from the inside out in both directions.
The tunnel before completion. The CP began drilling in the fall of 1865, and the Chinese worked twenty-four hours a day. The first train went through on November 30, 1867.
And then the snows came. The winter of 1866–67 was one of the worst ever. The CP tried everything to get through the snow, but even these gigantic plows on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada couldn’t buck their way through. Eventually the CP built miles and miles of snowsheds; next is a photograph taken by Albert Hart of the frame for one of them. This was one of the early, experimental ones, between Cisco and Summit, built in 1867.
Donner Lake as seen from the summit. The west portals of Tunnels 7 and 8 can be seen. The track hugs the mountains and the south side of the lake. Photo taken summer 1867.
In 1868 the CP track got through the Sierra Nevada and down to the Truckee River. This is a Howe truss bridge across the river at Eagle Gap.
Superintendent of Construction James Harvey Strobridge’s car at the end of the track. He was the only man on either railroad to bring his wife and all the other comforts of home. Photo taken probably in summer 1868 in Nevada.
By 1868 the CP was laying out track in the Nevada desert. That meant the men, horses, and engines had to have water. Here Locomotive 49, the El Dorado, fills its containers at Humboldt Lake to take water to the end of the track.
The first construction train to go through Palisade Canyon in eastern Nevada, along the Humboldt River.
An Indian looks down at the CP from the top of the canyon. Photos taken in late 1868.
The race ended in the spring of 1869. Leland Stanford and his party at Devil’s Gate Bridge, east of Ogden, Utah, on Weber River, May 8, 1869. They were just looking around, waiting for the UP to reach Promontory Summit for the driving of the last spike, and for Durant to be released from the workers who had held up his train at Piedmont.
