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The Building of the Transcontinental Railroad
Ever
since the first steam powered railroads started passenger and freight
service for such pioneering railroads as the Baltimore & Ohio or the Mohawk
& Hudson, forerunner of the great New York Central, the goals of railroad
construction were continuously raised. At the time when Eastern railroads
were struggling to cross the Alleghenies and reach the Ohio or the Great
Lakes, pioneering spirits already dreamed of a railroad that would cross the
American continent.
One
such pioneer was Asa Whitney (1797-1877), a New York tea merchant who
returned with a fortune he had made in China, where he lived from 1842-44.
Haunted by the prospects a transcontinental railroad promised for the China
and East India trade, in which he was an expert, Asa Whitney was the first
to promote the idea of such a railroad on a grand scale. He declared himself
ready to undertake the project to build a railroad from Lake Michigan
through the South Pass to the Pacific, backed with a land grant 60 miles
wide along the length of the road. He managed to bring his proposal to
Congress in 1848 where it was voted down, on the grounds of its unrealistic
construction scheme. A better prepared proposition was again presented to
Congress in 1850 and 1851, but failed to get support because of the
conflicting interests between the Northern and Southern states, the latter
being frankly opposed to the project altogether. Whitney then turned to the
English government and proposed a similar scheme for a transcontinental
railroad through Canada. After all these attempts failed, Asa Whitney ran
out of money and gave up his public campaigns in favor of the
Transcontinental railroad, retiring on a dairy farm in 1852. Ten years later
the Pacific Railroad Act finally granted government support to a
transcontinental railroad.
In
the meantime the Pacific Railroad was not left aside. The discovery of gold
in California not only created the first important transcontinental traffic
(much of which was channeled through Panama or Nicaragua), but also
significantly changed the public attitude towards the territories that
joined the United States after the Mexican War and the Oregon compromise.
Suddenly the West was no longer a wasteland of mountains and plains, or just
a reservation of land that could be used to resettle Indians. Suddenly
everybody found scores of reasons to try a new life in the West, which now
meant territories beyond the Mississippi stretching through to the Pacific
Coast. In 1853, Congress passed an act providing for the survey of possible
railroad lines from the Mississippi to the Pacific. At least five routes
were surveyed and each received support from a different section. Private
interest swarmed around the political backers, mainly interested in the
building of potentially lucrative feeder lines. The multitude of diverse
interests and the increasingly profound rift between North and South made an
agreement on a route impossible.
Railroad
Barons
> Transcontinental
Railroad :
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