page_title: First Transcontinental Railroad
section_title: Thomas Durant
hierarchical_section_title: First Transcontinental Railroad / Key individuals / Thomas Durant
caption_attribution_description: English: Thomas Clark Durant, M.D. (1820-1885), Vice President of the Union Pacific Railroad. From an engraving by Robert O'Brien based on a photograph by Matthew Brady. c 1865-70
context_page_description: The First Transcontinental Railroad was a 1,912-mile continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. The rail line was built by three private companies over public lands provided by extensive US land grants. Construction was financed by both state and US government subsidy bonds as well as by company issued mortgage bonds. The Western Pacific Railroad Company built 132 mi of track from the road's western terminus at Alameda/Oakland to Sacramento, California. The Central Pacific Railroad Company of California constructed 690 mi eastward from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. The Union Pacific Railroad built 1,085 mi from the road's eastern terminus at the Missouri River settlements of Council Bluffs and Omaha, Nebraska westward to Promontory Summit.
  The railroad opened for through traffic between Sacramento and Omaha on May 10, 1869, when CPRR President Leland Stanford ceremonially tapped the gold "Last Spike" with a silver hammer at Promontory Summit.
context_section_description: Former ophthalmologist Dr. Thomas Clark "Doc" Durant was nominally only a vice president of Union Pacific, so he installed a series of respected men like John Adams Dix as president of the railroad. Durant and its financing arrangements were, unlike those of the CPRR, mired in controversy and scandals.
caption: Dr. Thomas C. Durant
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