First Transcontinental Railroad

Seven Wonders of the Industrial World

The First Transcontinental Railroad was completed on 10 May 1869 when the Central Pacific and Union Pacific lines met at Promontory Summit in the Utah Territory, creating the first continuous rail route across the United States. Authorised by Pacific Railroad Acts passed during the Civil War, it was built by two competing companies: the Central Pacific working east from Sacramento over the Sierra Nevada with a workforce that included thousands of Chinese labourers, and the Union Pacific working west from the Missouri River across the plains with Irish immigrants, army veterans and others. The work was dangerous, through blizzards and deserts, with tunnelling in granite and conflict with Indigenous nations whose lands were affected. The final ceremony, with a ceremonial golden spike and a telegraph message announcing the news, was photographed in famous images that mostly excluded the Chinese workers. The railroad cut travel across the continent from months to about a week and reshaped settlement, trade, warfare and the environment, bringing opportunity to many and dispossession and harm to others. Today the Golden Spike National Historical Park preserves the meeting place, with a visitor centre, trails along the original grade, and working replicas of the locomotives Jupiter and No. 119 that operate on certain days, while the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento tells the Central Pacific side. The park is open outdoors from sunrise to sunset, and its remote location, expansive sky and wind give a feel for the scale of the achievement.