page_title: Western Pacific Railroad (1862–1870)
section_title: Construction and Transactions
hierarchical_section_title: Western Pacific Railroad (1862–1870) / History / Construction and Transactions
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: pacifictouristwi00will (find matches) Title: The Pacific tourist&#160;: Williams' illustrated trans-continental guide of travel, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean&#160;: containing full descriptions of railroad routes across the continent, all pleasure resorts and places of most noted scenery in the far West, also of all cities, towns, villages, U.S. Forts, springs, lakes, mountains, routes of summer travel, best localities for hunting, fishing, sporting, and enjoyment, with all needful information for the pleasure traveler, miner, settler, or business man&#160;: a complete traveler's guide of the Union and Central Pacific Railroads and all points of business or pleasure travel to California, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Montana, the mines and mining of the territories, the lands of the Pacific Coast, the wonders of the Rocky Mountains, the scenery of the Sierra Nevadas, the Colorado mountains, the big trees, the geysers, the Yosemite, and the Yellowstone Year: 1877 (1870s) Authors: Williams, Henry T Subjects: Union Pacific Railroad Company Central Pacific Railroad Company Publisher: New York&#160;: H.T. Williams Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: ediately south ofSalt Lake, and passed for several hundred milesthrough a desert, beside which the HumboldtValley had no comparison in tediousness and dis-comfort. Captain Stansbury, an early explorer, indescribing this section, describes large tracts ofland covered with an incrustation of salt: The first part of the plains consisted simplyof dried mud, with small crystals of salt scat-tered thickly over the surface; crossing this, wecame upon another portion of it, three miles inwidth, where the ground was entirely coveredwith a thin layer of salt in a state of deliques-cence, and of so soft consistence, that the feet ofour mules sank at every step into the mud be-neath. But we soon came upon a portion ofthe plains where the salt lay in a solid state, inone unbroken sheet, extending apparently to itswestern border. So firm and strong was thisunique and snowy floor, that it sustained theweight of our entire train without in the leastgiving way, or cracking beneath the pressure. Qu^^s, Text Appearing After Image: REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE CENTRAL PACIFIC RAILROAD.-E. B. Crocker. 2.—C. P. Huntington. 3.—Leland Stanford. 4.—Charles Crocker. 5.—Mark Hopkins. 159 Our mules walked upon it as upon a sheet ofsolid ice. The whole field was crossed by a net-work of little ridges, projecting about half aninch, as if the salt had expanded in the processof crystallization. I estimated this field to be, atleast, seven miles wide and ten miles in length.The salt which was very pure and white, aver-aged from one-half to three-quarters of an inchin thickness, and was equal in all repects to ourfinest specimen for table use. Assuming thesedata, the quantity that here lay upon the groundin one body, exclusive of that already dis-solved,—amounted to over 4,500,000 cubic yards,or about 100,000,000 bushels. And even thissmall area, is but a very little portion of thewhole region, farther northward and westward. The Central Pacific Railroad. The record of the building of the Central Pacif-ic Railroad is a Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: The Western Pacific Railroad was formed in 1862 to build a railroad from Sacramento, California, to the San Francisco Bay, the westernmost portion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. After the completion of the railroad from Sacramento to Alameda Terminal on September 6, 1869, and then the Oakland Pier on November 8, 1869, which was the Pacific coast terminus of the transcontinental railroad, the Western Pacific Railroad was absorbed in 1870 into the Central Pacific Railroad.
context_section_description: The Western Pacific Railroad then began to construct its line from San Jose northward.  By early 1865, after Chinese laborers had helped complete the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad in 1864, a force of 500 Chinese laborers was grading the roadbed and laying tracks for the Western Pacific.  By October 1866 Western Pacific had laid 20 miles (32 km) of track north and east from San Jose, reaching halfway into Alameda Cañon (now Niles Canyon) to a point just beyond Farwell. The first cars left San Jose to Vallejo Canyon (Alameda Cañon) on October 2.   It had also laid out the rest of the line through Alameda Cañon, through Livermore Valley, over Livermore Pass (now Altamont Pass), and on to Stockton and Sacramento, before running out of money and halting all construction.  Part of the difficulty was that federal land grants were not available where Mexican land grants had previously been made.
  In Spring 1867, the five Associates (Big Four plus E. B. Crocker) of the Central Pacific completed a complicated transaction with moribund Western Pacific (WP) and resuscitated it and its assets while Charles McLaughlin, the only Western Pacific owner left, retained rights to sell his land grants. In September 1867, Governor Stanford led a party to show them the projected WP line, which would captured his interest that it would soon be dubbed "The Governor's Road". In October 1867, patterned after the structure of the ill-fated Crédit Mobilier of America, the Contract and Finance Company was incorporated to act as the stock/asset holding/laundering subsidiary formally independent of Central Pacific, but informally transferring stocks/assets back to the five CP Associates, to finance the construction and purchase of railroad.  Subsequently Central Pacific concluded that the route via San Jose to San Francisco was too long and that it would be better to change to a route using ferryboats from the planned CPRR's Oakland Pier in Oakland.  The decision to make Oakland the western terminus of the WP line was finally wrapped up, under the charge of Gov. Stanford, in a series of complex transactions and legislative compromise in April 1868.  The CPRR briefly considered a shorter route west from Dublin/Pleasanton to the Hayward/San Leandro area (a route used by Bay Area Rapid Transit more than 100 years later), but decided that the grades were too much of a disadvantage compared to the 1% grade of the Alameda Cañon route. 
  Since Central Pacific had decided to make Oakland the west coast terminus of the First Transcontinental Railroad, its subsidiary purchased in August 1868 the majority of stock in San Francisco and Oakland Railroad (SF&O), which provided ferry-train service from a San Francisco ferry terminal connecting with railroad service through Oakland to San Antonio.  In early 1868, contractors Turton, Knox & Ryan broke ground on the Western Pacific line from Sacramento southward to Stockton and beyond, including Livermore Pass.  After the 1868 Hayward earthquake bankrupted the San Francisco and Alameda Railroad (SF&A), the CP subsidiary also purchased in August 1869 the majority of stock in SF&A, which provided ferry service from San Francisco and train service from Alameda Terminal to the quake-damaged terminal at Hayward, California.  
  After the Central Pacific completed the western half of the first transcontinental railroad from Omaha to Sacramento with the golden spike ceremony on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, J. H. Strobridge with some crew and equipment went to Vallejo Mills (now Niles) at the west end of Alameda Cañon to commence in June 1869 to build a new rail line from Vallejo Mills northward towards Oakland. Meanwhile, Turton, Knox & Ryan dispatched workers to continue the railroad in Alameda Cañon eastward from the point where the 1866 Western Pacific rails abruptly stopped.  
  By July 1869, Strobridge had 500 Chinese workers on the leg from Vallejo Mills towards Oakland. On the other two fronts, Turton, Knox & Ryan had a larger force of upwards of 2,000 men, mostly Chinese, some deployed working eastward from the 
caption: Five Associates of CPRR: l.—E. B. Crocker. 2.—C. P. Huntington. 3.—Leland Stanford. 4.—Charles Crocker. 5.—Mark Hopkins. From 1878 "The Pacific tourist"
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