Transcontinental Railroad
The US was a young
Republic, but already possessed with big ideas for itself. During the 1800’s
many people would traveled by horse making travel long and hard often
dangerous. There were many Indians along the road, some were friendly some not.
Along that, there were any number of deadly diseases in the crossing. Moreover,
after the discovery of gold in region of California, there was a growing
interest to unite the country as thousands of immigrants and miners sought
their fortune in the West. Transcontinental Railroad was the technological
manifestation of manifest destiny. That is how one nation was built with a
railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It opens a new economic in the
American west as the railroad itself representing the civilization.
There were many
possible routes discussed for the transcontinental railroad. For instance, some
wanted the railroad to go through Missouri and headed to the Rocky Mountain.
Some would not cooperate unless the railroad went through Illinois. The
southern politicians wanted to start from Georgia and moved across. Though
congress could not decide on the route of the railroad, the Cost to Cost
railroad had been an imagination for all the engineers across America. Theodore
Judah, a civil engineer who was so obsessed with the idea of transcontinental
railroad together with Daniel Strong purposed their idea to the congress. They
recommended a route that would follow Platt River, along the North Fork, that
would cross the Continental Divide at South pass in Wyoming and continue along
to Green River.
President Lincoln favored this route and signed
for an agreement. However, finding the laborer were hard at that time. The
labored were mainly Irish immigrants, but many of them abandoned railroad work. Within three years of the
Central Pacific workforce was made up of Chinese workers, and they proved to be
essential to the task of laying the line through the Sierra Nevadas. Once
believed to be too frail to perform arduous manual labor, the Chinese workers
accomplished amazing and dangerous feats no other workers would or could do.
Since the beginning when the Chinese started working on the railroad, they
faced a lot of discrimination. The Chinese could not become
citizens, vote, or even own property. In other hand also, most white people
felt as though the Chinese were stealing the jobs away from them. However,
the Chinese were the one who worked hard and stayed dedicated which played a
significant role in the building of the transcontinental railroad.
Within only a few
years after it was opened, the transcontinental railroad turned the frontier
wilderness of the western territories into regions populated by
European-Americans, enabling business and commerce to proliferate and
effectively ending the traditional Native American way of life. However, throughout
the years most of the railroad ties were dug up and used for
supplies. The railroad became less popular as the years went by
because of highways, automobiles and air transportation.
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