The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1869-06-03
The History of the Pacific Railroad in
Nutshell

The History Of the Pacific Railroad In
Nutshell
The Baltimore Sun gives tho following
concise history Of the Pacific Railroad
with interesting comments upon the i'm
portance of such an enterprise to the
country:
The formal consummation Of so grand
an enterprise deserves to be heralded by
such an agent as electricity. Imperfect as
the road is considered to be by those com
petent persons who have had good op-
portunity Of examining it, and untortu'
nate as 1t was that the President was ar
rested by his laborers for money alleged
to be due, on the very day the work was
supposed to be finished, it may DO regar-
ded virtually as an accomplished fact, no
matter how large tho amount that may
yet be required to make it what it profcs-
ses to be.
Such work is not only more valuable,
but more truly glorious than all the
achievements of war. Tho commercial
and political consequences of this extra
ordinary achievement arc almost beyond
calculation. The region between the
Pacific slope and the Mississippi valley
will be filled with hardy and productive
settlers, the new territories will be popu
lated, the mining regions developed. the
Mississippi valley will become great
seat of manufactures, to say nothing OF
the Asatic trade which may find its way
across this national highway. In addition
to all this, the Pacific States will be bound
by ties of direct commercial and social
ntcrcommunication with the rest Of the
Union, identifying their interest with our
own, removing what Humbolt calls "the
barriers that make men strangers-whlch
is generally only another name for ene-
mles-and nothing is so etiicaeious in ac-
complishng this end, so devoutly to be
wished, as promoting intercourse between
man and man. 1t is indeed Il great work:
not only OF union, but Of civilization, and
even humanity, bringing into closer con
tact not only our. Atlantic and Pacific
States, but tho oldest and the youngest
empires of the world.
ANY man who had predicted fifty years
ago that by science, and the practical ap-
plication of it, ssthc Atlantic would be
brought nearer in this year to the Pacific
than New York then was TO Boston,
would havo exposed himself TO strong
doubts of his sanity. Yet this seeming
maniacal fancy bias been realized. Dcs-
erts and mountains have in vain inter
posed. The line across the continent is
so long that trains upon it are run by
eipht or ten different times, and a contem-
porary suggests that ultimately we shall
have a double set of hands upon all
watchcs-ono for local time, and one for
general time-uniiorm all over the
world" At noon in New York it is 8 A.
NJ. in San Francisco Hence, VIC were at
fifty minutes past two in Baltimore when,
at noon yesterday, as above stated, the
telegraph "shed its lightnings' from
Promontory Point to herald this grand
victory of peace The methods and princi-
pies now so successfully applied may have
been established in former generations,
but it has been reserved for this genera
ton to witness what may bo styled, with
almost literal accuracy, an annihilation
of time and space.
1t is said that Pacific road was fore
shadowed before the ago of railways by
Jonathan Carver, in l77S. In 1885 Rev.
Samuel Parker recorded his opinion in
his journal OF an overland trip that the
mountains presented no insupcrable OBJ
staclc to a railway. But the most re-
markablc foresight was evinced By Lewis
Gaylord Clarke, who in 1888 wrote in his
popular magazine, the knickcrbockcr: !:
Tito reader is now living vino will make
q railway trip across this vast continent -
In 1916 Asa Whitney began To urge his
project upon State Legislatures and pop
ular gatherings, proposing to build rail
way from the Mississippi to Puget Sound
California was not yet settled by whitcs)
if Congress would give him public lands
to the width OF thirty miles along the en-
tire lie. In 1850 the first Pacific rail
road bill was introduced into Congress by
Thomas II. Benton. 1t contemplated II
railway only "where practicable" leaving
gaps in the impossible mountains to be
filled up by wagon road. AS yet, even
the Alleghanics were not crossed 10y any
unbroken railway, but by a Series Of tinclin-
Gu planes, ulon WHICH tnc Cato "c'c
drawn up and let down by stationary en-
gines. In 1854 by direction Of Con-
gress, nine routes were surveyed TO the
Pacific, on various parallels, between tho
British possessions and Mexico. In 1859
Congress authorized the construction of
three roads--a northern, southern, and
a central-and thus indicated our natural
and inevitable trans-conlinental system.
They were to receive no money cndow-
ment, but very liberal land grants. But
before any active steps were taken to
build them, all such enterprises were ex-
tinguished for the time by the late civil
war. The Central Pacific Railroad Com.
pany, was, however. chartered by the Cali
iornia Legislature in the midst of the war,