What Is The Importance Of The Transcontinental Railroad

Transcontinental railroad- railroad that connects both sides of the us and provides jobs and increases exports

The transcontinental railroad was the most influential innovation of the United States, that brought a revolution of how people traveled. One year after the Civil War ended the people of the United States were looking for a way to unite their country back together. This helped mold the United States as to what it has become today. It helped people cross the country and improved how goods were transported. The man that was forming the transcontinental railroad was a merchant named Asa Whitney. He had asked the government for funding to construct one of the greatest innovation of the United States. “Two railroads, the Central Pacific starting in San Francisco and a new railroad, the Union Pacific, starting in Omaha, Nebraska, would build the rail-line.” (ushistory.org). One fear of building the railroad was the danger of the “Great American Desert” because of the lack of resources. The Central Pacific was primarily made by Chinese immigrants. The Union Pacific was primarily made up of Irish immigrants. By spring of 1866 the Central Pacific had only build 68 miles of track from Sacramento, while the Union Pacific going west from Omaha built 200 miles of track in less than a year. Therefore the Union Pacific made millions more. The next three years the railroads would continue to try and make history.

The late 19th Century was a revolutionizing period in American History evident by the Industrial Revolution and the Civil War. However, it was the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad which profoundly changed the United States. The discovery of gold, the acquisition of Mexican territories and the continued settlement of the West increased the need for a primary railway system connecting the East and the West Coasts.

The Transcontinental Railroad once completed, was used to ship goods back and forth to the East and West, and transport people more efficiently. No longer did people have to take boats and ships around the bottom of South America and make that difficult journey. The railroad provided a much faster route, it only took five days to get from San Francisco to New York. America grew smaller as people explored

In 1860, the United States had more railroad track than the rest of the world combined. Shipping freight by rail became much more practical and affordable, easily beating out the use of steamboats. The railroad directly led to the increase of urban centers. Chicago, for example, virtually quadrupled its population during the 1850’s. By the 1880’s, there were at least 93, 267 miles of rail that stretched across the plains and just ten years later, there were 163,597 miles of rail. By 1862, Congress passed the Pacific Railroad Act, which gave the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroads responsibility for building the transcontinental railroad. Congress also granted both railroads lands and millions of dollars of government loans. May 10, 1869, after six long years of hard intensive labor, the tracks of the two railroads finally met at

“If any act symbolized the taming of the Northwest frontier, it was the driving of the final spike to complete the nation’s first transcontinental railroad.”1 The first railroad west of the Mississippi River was opened on December 23, 1852. Five miles long, the track ran from St. Louis to Cheltanham, Missouri. Twenty-five years prior, there were no railroads in the United States; twenty-five years later, railroads joined the east and west coasts from New York to San Francisco.2

The Transcontinental Railroad was one of the most ambitious engineering projects, economic stimulants, and efficient methods of transportation in the early United States. If completed, the United States would be truly be united from east to west. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the Transcontinental Railroad helped develop new opportunities for many aspects of American life.

An astounding invention in the nineteenth century transformed America. Towns sprang up where only barren land had once been, families reconnected and and crossed the continent together, and immigrants poured into the Land of Opportunity. Few technological advancements had enough influence to impact so many people and places, but the Transcontinental Railroad was one of those rare cases. From 1863 to 1869, the Railroad expanded over the continent. This project had many unforeseen effects, whether social, economic, or political. The Transcontinental Railroad affected America the most socially by changing travel for the average American, uprooting the American Indians, and leading to more prejudice against immigrants.

By the 1860’s railways were being hailed as an answer to economic problems. Those people in the Maritimes who supported Confederation argued that a transcontinental railway would improve among the colonies and would also help to unify the country. Goods could be moved much

I am a farmer in Nebraska, and have recently received notice that up there on Capitol Hill you presented a bill and idea to have a transcontinental railroad run right through Nebraska, where I have recently bought my homestead. This railroad will go right through my land, and there will be many men on my land, tilling up my crops and stomping on my land to put this in. I am not one bushel of happy about this, and would like you to reconsider and represent your bill (now law) to all the fellas up there on Capitol Hill.

The railways became an important system that guided settlement and delivered economic opportunity for much of the United States. Railroads allowed access to places that people had no means of getting to and provided an opportunity to develop cities and towns

The construct of the Transcontinental railroad began in 1863 and ended in 1869. After it was complete people used it very much to travel across the country and people still it today to travel to places. People offend only believe the railroad was one of the most amazing that happen to our country and it only caused great things to happen. However, this is not all true. The railroad did cause great things like it helped increase westward expansion in the United States of America but it also caused a lot of horrible things like causing the removal of many Native American tribes in the west. So, after the Transcontinental Railroad was completed, there were positives effect but also negative effects that occur in the US.

To start, I will explain the purpose of the Transcontinental railroad. In Source #1”Full Steam Ahead The Transcontinental Railroad”, it says “People had been asking for coast-to-coast rail travel for decades. Since the invention of the locomotive in 1825, companies had built many rail lines. These railroads connected eastern cities and seaports,splashing travel times and helping these areas grow. Crossing the country, however was much more difficult. People and trade goods traveled by horse, stagecoach, or wagon train. The trip took months. Not many made the journey.” So the government during the time thought that building a railroad, would help businesses “ sprout up like corn.” According to Source #1 it also says “ Two companies immediately got to work. Railroads already existed that stretched from the East of Omaha, Nebraska. Now, the Union Pacific Railroad began extending the tracks from Omaha out to the West. The Central Pacific Railroad began in Sacramento,California and laid tracks out East. Eventually, the two companies would meet in Promontory, Utah. So, basically the purpose of the railroad was to get people and goods from coast-to-coast.

At the peak of expansion in the 1800’s, communication between the east and west was at the forefront of importance. A document from the State of Pennsylvania regarding railways in 1825 remarked that there is extreme “importance and necessity of effecting a communication between the eastern and western divisions of the commonwealth” (Wade, 5). The appearance of the railroads in the early 19th century decreased and nearly diminished the communication gap as it provided a reliable and speedy method of communication. As the railroads became more prominent across the United States, the western states naturally became linked to the Midwestern and eastern states through the Union Pacific Railroad. This railroad running from the east coast to the west coast opened up new doors in trans-continental communication. Businesses between the east and the west were able to communicate more effectively, and thus, trans-continental trade became more defined throughout the United States. The mail services began using railroads as well, which was a large factor in improving communication across the US. Trans-continental communication was broadened simply by the increased number of people traveling across the country. And, even when the railroads seemed an impractical method of transportation, “they might make possible long

“Before the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, it cost nearly $1,000 dollars to travel across the country. After the railroad was completed, the price dropped to $150 dollars.”(History.com Staff). Prior to the railroad the average citizen of America could not afford to travel across the country cheaply. America waited for a means of transportation which would connect them from the Western to Eastern states. The responsibility of creating the railroads were left up to construction companies. Once this invention was created, traveling became quick, easy and affordable. The Transcontinental Railroad could be defined as the most significant change in America, during the 19th Century.