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HISTORICAL ROOTS OF AMERICA’S RAILROAD 15
Depicting the ceremony of the driving of the “Last Spike” by homas Hill (1881).
Oakland in November of 1869. he American rail network had yet to be connected to the Atlantic or the Paciic.
At first, trains had to be transported across the Missouri River for passengers to undertake a real transcontinental journey. Completed in July 1869, the Hannibal Bridge in Kansas City was the irst bridge to cross the Missouri.
In August of 1870, the Kansas Paciic was linked to the Denver Paciic line at Strasburg, Colorado—it was the irst true Atlantic-to-Paciic railroad. Two years later, upon completion of the Union Paciic Missouri River Bridge in 1872, Council Blufs was inally connected to the East Coast rail network.
he Transcontinental Express train arrived in San Francisco on June 4, 1876, along the Transcontinental Railroad, making a record trip of 83 hours 39 minutes from New York City.
Lincoln’s National Railroad System
Through America’s most difficult times, Lincoln embraced and restored
a devastated Union. He struggled hard to end and heal the wounds of the Civil
War and to put an end to slavery.
During the Civil War in the 1860s, Lincoln had thought of building a transcontinental railroad to the Paciic. He was motivated in part by his desire to link California to the Union and chiely wished to protect the nation. he idea of establishing a route to the Paciic had been the subject of studies and debates decades earlier. Yet the issues of who would build the route and who would pay for its construction were always raised. And the biggest argument was over the route.
Although most of the leaders believed that proceeding with the project amidst a war was risky, Lincoln did not waver. On July 1, 1862, he signed the Paciic Railway Act into law.