The Two Railroads Race to the Meeting Point

Central Pacific had graded eighty miles to the east that it never would cover and the Union Pacific had wasted a million dollars on grading west of the meeting-place that it could not use.

Continuing First North American Transcontinental Railroad Completed,
our selection from The Union Pacific Railway by John P. Davis published in 1894. The selection is presented in six easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in First North American Transcontinental Railroad Completed.

Time: May 10, 1869
Place: Promontory Summit, Utah

The renewed provision resulted in the greatest race on record. The Central Pacific had to surmount the Sierra Nevada range at the beginning of its course, but the “Big Four,” under the legal disguise of Charles Crocker and Company, were plucky, and the rise of seven thousand twelve feet above the sea-level in the one hundred five miles east of Sacramento to Summit was accomplished by the autumn of 1867. The Central Pacific did not wait for the completion of its fourteen tunnels, and especially its longest one of more than one thousand six hundred feet, at Summit, but hauled iron and supplies, and even loco motives, over the Sierra Nevada beyond the completed track, and went ahead with track-laying, to be connected later with the track through the tunnels. The Union Pacific had comparatively easy work from Omaha along the Platte Valley and up the slope to the summit of the Rocky Mountains, and boasted that its line would reach the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada before the Central Pacific had surmounted it. But the boast was not warranted.

In the autumn of 1867 the invading army of Mongolians emerged from the mountains on the west, while the rival army of Celts had reached the summit of the Black Hills and were beginning their descent into the Great Basin on the east. Every mile now meant a prize of $64,000 to $96,000 for the contending giants, with the commercial advantage of the control of the traffic of the Salt Lake Valley in addition. The construction of road went on at the rate of four to ten miles a day. Each of the two companies had more than ten thousand men at work.

For the purpose of facilitating the work, the amendatory Act of 1864 had permitted, on the certificate of the chief engineer and government commissioners that a portion of the work re quired to prepare the road for the superstructure was done, that a proportion of the bonds to be fully earned on the final completion of the work, not exceeding two-thirds of the value of the portion of the work done, and not exceeding two-thirds of the whole amount of bonds to be earned, should be delivered to each company; the full benefit of this inducement was sought by each of the contestants. The Union Pacific company had its parties of graders working two hundred miles in advance of its completed line in places as far west as Humboldt Wells, but financial difficulties prevented its following up this advantage. The Central Pacific Company, on the other hand, had its grading parties one hundred miles ahead of its completed line and thirty miles east of Ogden.

When the two roads met at Promontory Point, it was found that the Central Pacific had graded eighty miles to the east that it never would cover, and the Union Pacific had wasted a million dollars on grading west of the meeting-place that it could not use. The Central Pacific had obtained from the Secretary of the Treasury an advance of two-thirds of the bond subsidy on its graded line to Echo Summit, about forty miles east of Ogden, before its completed line had reached Promontory Point; while the Union Pacific had actually laid its track to and westward from Ogden and appeared thus to have gained the advantage of controlling the Salt Lake Valley traffic from Ogden as a base. The Union Pacific was pushing westward from Ogden with its completed line about a mile distant from and parallel with the surveyed and graded line of the Central Pacific and the two companies were each claiming the right to build the line between Ogden and Promontory Point on their separate surveys. The completed lines were threatening to lap as the graded lines already lapped, when Congress interfered and tried to clear the muddle by statute. Before Congress could reach a conclusion, the companies compromised their differences, and Congress then approved the settlement by a joint resolution, April 10, 1869, “That the common terminus of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads shall be at or near Ogden; and the Union Pacific Railroad Company shall build, and the Central Pacific Railroad Company pay for and own, the railroad from the terminus aforesaid to Promontory Summit, at which point the rails shall meet and connect and form one continuous line.” In the following year Congress, by further enactment, fixed “the com mon terminus and point of junction” at a particular point about five miles “northwest of the station at Ogden”; later the Union Pacific leased to the Central Pacific the five miles of track between the station at Ogden and the point fixed by Congress; thus Ogden became the actual point of junction of the two links of the completed Pacific railway.

It had at first been generally assumed that the transcontinental railway would pass through Salt Lake City and south of Great Salt Lake, and the Mormons had used their influence to obtain such a route; but before the final surveys were made, the north line was found by the Union Pacific to be more acceptable and was approved by the Government. Brigham Young thereupon called a meeting of the dignitaries of the Mormon Church, and an order was issued that no Mormon should make further grading-contracts with the Union Pacific. As the Mormon traffic was one of the prizes of the railway race, and the assistance of Mormon contractors was highly needful, the Union Pacific management awaited with some apprehension the action of the Central Pacific, but the latter also decided in favor of the route along the north shore, and Zion had to be content with the prospect of a future branch line. The Mormons then resumed their old relations with the eastern company, and many miles of well-graded roadbed bear witness of their participation in the enterprise.

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