The Honolulu republican. [volume] (Honolulu, T.H.) 1900-1902, 1901-06-23

10 conxfrnesscu The concrete *
preston q the zez torres wee The
PacsaC Railroad
Cakes Ames. Sidney Dillon zzd r
c Dsrznt were azonz The heads q
the Eufou Pacific wAsSe Stanford.
Eznfingr0z- Hopkins and Croker
managed the Central Pacific nne Bat
the immediate direction cx the work
On the Union Pacific section vas
largely in the hands % military men
chief of whom Vas Gen GFeayfIle d
Dodge Many q those who marked
cut the route prepared the ToadbeG
and laid the rails were ex-soIdiers
and the sork was prosecuted from
day 20 aay with military precision
From the closing weeks OF 1854 20
near the middle Of 1853 two great
hosts. each in the later days almost
as large as an army corps. many Of
the men being armed and drilled ike
soldiers Except that most OF the
Central Pacific's laboEeTs we're Chi
uese3. one body moving west from
Nebraska's easteriy verge ami the
other east from the interior Of Cali
/ fovuia. tramped across the waste Of
ssragery toward their meeting place
near Great Salt Lake. They passed
over fertile prairies and vast alkah
deserts. threw trestise across gaping
| canyons scaled and tunneled noun
tains. and pushed hack Sioux. Utes
and other red men who. intermittenly
and promiscuously. dashed down up
on the columns advanced posts. cen
ter or rear. as chance Of surprise Of
fered. slaughtering isolated parties OF
surveyors. track layers or train crews.
burning supply stations and derailing
4 locomotives Each column left be
4 hind II double threads OF iron. hun
4 dreds of unnamed graves OF white.
black. yellow and red men as well
as the debris OF towns at the roads
i shifting termini. which in their little
hour had a life as grotesque as any
thing in Arabia's legends
! May 10. 1859. brought the climax.
with the whole world. metaphorically.
as spectators. when the rails met at
Promontory Point. Utah. Excursion
lists were brought to the spot by both
the Pacific lines. and these. with Off
GERS of the two roads. and with la
borers belonging TO almost every race
and mixture under the sun, with the
original American. the haif-tamed and
: the untamed redman fringing the
! background. made up the gathering.
CALIFORNIA; laurel tie with silver
bands was laid down: Nevada's silver
: spike. CALIFORNIA; two spikes of gold.
J and Arizona's three. of gold. silver
! and iron. were driven in by Stanford.
. the western divisions president. and
by Durant. the vice president of the
/ ~. 49, ra1sa orv.a
uhicaily registering themselves in
New York. Washington and some
other United States cities by the ring
! ing of bells and flashed TO Europe by
the Atlantic cable-telling the world
| that the Pacific Railroad was finished.
, Il was twenty-four years since
. Whitney's first memorial for trans
/ continental railway was presented to
Congress. It was thirty-seven years
| since Ann Arbor's dead and forgotten
little weekly newspaper the Emil
grant. first suggested the railroad con-
nectiou between the two oceans 1t
was sixty-four years since Lewis and
Clark the first of Americans to tray-
; el from the interior TO the great West
ern ocean. sailed down she Columbia
i TO the Pacific II was 333 years since
: the Spaniard CaheZa de Naca and his
/ three companions. at the end of their
! eight years of wanderings from Flori-
da and onward through Louisiana.
Texas. New Mexico and Arizona.
staggered into the little Mexican
town of San Miguel de Caliaean. on
the Gulf of California. the first of
civilized men to cross Americas dark
continent. The building of the sub
seouent railroad lines to the Pacific.
and there are now five of them in
all-the Union Pacific the Northern
Pacific. the Atchison, Topeka and
Santa Fe. the Southern Pacific and
the Great Northern-was repetition.
, in few features. of the tale already
told. except that most of the peril
! and the ,largeness and some of the
freshness and the romance of the sto-
" of the first girdling of the conti-
uent was lacking