Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1941-06-14

around Cape Horn, covering distance
/ of 10000 miles An immense amount
of material was in this way trans
/ ported. It is a matter of history that
/ at one time no less than 80 vessels,
( loaded almost exclusively with rolling
stock, aggregating hundreds OF tnou-
sands of tons, were on the long voyage.
The snow-capped summit Of the
/ Sierras was reached by the Central
Pacific in the summer OF 1867, and
on the 3Oth day of November, follow
ing, the first passenger train ran there
from Sacramento. In building the road
an army of 10000 men and more than
1000 teams were steadily engaged,
making their way eastward in a sort
of zigZagging course down the eastern
slope The difficulties of the road were
tremendous. Numbers of long tunnels
had to be built, and the engineering
feats were hard to overcome, but the
road progressed so rapidly that In
October, 1867, the army Of builders
employed on the Union Pacific reached
the foothills of the Rockies, 500 miles
west of Omaha, after which further
progress was necessarily slow, while up
the Platte valley, on the Union Pacific,
with the immense force employed IN
building, the track was being spiked
down at the rate of q miles day.
Sherman, the highest point on the
road-likeWise. the highest altitude in
the United States reached by the iron
horse then-WaS nestled on the back
bone of the continent and lay 8,424
feet above tide 1t was 1882 feet above
the highest point reached on the Cen
trail Pacific.
Business Booming
Business in those days was booming,
and few men, if any, were idle. Every
man capable of work was engaged and
sent to the front. At one time the
number of men who had been concen-,
trated for the construction OF the Two
roads reached $4,000 and 5000 teams
were EMPLOYED. Between so and 100
locomotives and hundreds Of freight
cars were daily employed on each road,
and more than a thousand tons OF
material and supplies were being hur-
ried daily to the front over the two
lines.
In the spring of 1869 only 1900 miles
interviewed between the two roads, and
this was being rapidly closed up. Each
company was doing its best to get the
most road. When the Union Pacific
was finished to a point only five miles
east of Promontory Point, the Central
Pacific astonished everybody by laying
nine miles Oh bIdCh Ii q ou4SAE 0esyI
beating every previous record known
in railroad building.
The two gangs Of tracklayers day by
day and hour by hour were steadily
nearing each other. They met face to
face on the morning of May 10.
1t was on this morning that Gets
left Salt Lake for his last drive on the
Overland to Fort Crittenden, and 1t
was Just as the last rails Of the trans
continental lines were being brought
together that he drove up. The closing
exercises were started, Governor Stan
ford, who was president of the Central
Pacific, shaking hands with Vice
President Durand of the Union Pa
cific. The last tie put down was OF
laurel, cut in the mountains of Cal
ifornia. 1t had been beautifully pol
ished for the occasion, and was care
fully put in place in the roadbed.
Then the last rail was laid and spiked.
The two locomotives, painting, were on
the track facing each other. The At
lantic and Pacific, separated by more
than $500 miles and by four lofty
mountain ranges, were at last Joined
by bands of steel The telegraph i'm
mediately began ticking off the joyful
tidings that we're flashed around the