Central Pacific
Since 1860, routes had been surveyed for a suitable pass to connect the verdant Californian valleys and active ports to the arid Great Basin Desert of Nevada. The biggest obstacle preventing a reliable railroad from being laid was the steep Seirra Nevada Mountains. Charles Marsh and Theodore Judah, both civil engineers, found a potential railroad route they were convinced could be built. They would meet with Daniel Strong, James Bailey, Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins Jr., Lucius Anson Booth and Charles Crocker to obtain financial backing and file paperwork to incorporate their new company, and on April 30, 1861, became the first board of directors for the Central Pacific Railroad.
In 1862, the U.S. Congress chartered the Central Pacific Railroad company to build eastwards from Sacramento, California with the purpose to complete the western half of the great Trans Continental Railroad. The construction of this railroad began on January 8, 1863 in Sacramento where it would begin the slow and arduous task of climbing the Seirra Nevada Mountains. The construction of the railroad began on January 8, 1863 in Sacramento where it would begin the slow and arduous task of climbing the Seirra Nevada Mountains. By 1865, the first Cantonese emigrant workers were hired onto the work force. The construction crew grew to include up to 12,000 Chinese laborers by 1868, when they breached Donner summit and made up 80% of the workforce.
After crossing the alkaline flats of Nevada and Utah’s deserts, the race to meet the Union Pacific Railroad would culminate at Promontory Point in Utah on May 10, 1869. The connection of the east and west coasts of the United States was celebrated with a ceremonial “Golden Spike” being hammered. The once months long sea voyage or hazardous wagon train had been replaced with coast-to-coast railroad travel in just eight days.