The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete most of the western part of the "First transcontinental railroad" in North America. Incorporated in 1861, CPRR ceased independent operations in 1875 when the railroad was leased to the Southern Pacific Railroad. Its assets were formally merged into Southern Pacific in 1959.
Theodore Dehone Judah was an American civil engineer who was a central figure in the original promotion, establishment, and design of the First transcontinental railroad. He found investors for what became the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR). As chief engineer, he performed much of the route survey work to determine the best alignment for the railroad over the Sierra Nevada, which was completed six years after his death.
America's first transcontinental railroad was a 1,911-mile (3,075 km) continuous railroad line built 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 U.S. land grants. Building was financed by both state and U.S. government subsidy bonds as well as by company-issued mortgage bonds. The Western Pacific Railroad Company built 132 miles (212 km) of track from the road's western terminus at Alameda/Oakland to Sacramento, California. The Central Pacific Railroad Company of California (CPRR) constructed 690 miles (1,110 km) east from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. The Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) built 1,085 miles (1,746 km) from the road's eastern terminus at the Missouri River settlements of Council Bluffs and Omaha, Nebraska, westward to Promontory Summit.
A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single railroad or over those owned or controlled by multiple railway companies along a continuous route. Although Europe is crisscrossed by railways, the railroads within Europe are usually not considered transcontinental, with the possible exception of the historic Orient Express. Transcontinental railroads helped open up interior regions of continents not previously colonized to exploration and settlement that would not otherwise have been feasible. In many cases they also formed the backbones of cross-country passenger and freight transportation networks. Many of them continue to have an important role in freight transportation and some like the Trans-Siberian Railway even have passenger trains going from one end to the other.
The Crédit Mobilier scandal was a two-part fraud conducted from 1864 to 1867 by the Union Pacific Railroad and the Crédit Mobilier of America construction company in the building of the eastern portion of the first transcontinental railroad. The story was broken by The New York Sun during the 1872 campaign of Ulysses S. Grant.
Railroads played a large role in the development of the United States from the industrial revolution in the Northeast (1820s–1850s) to the settlement of the West (1850s–1890s). The American railroad mania began with the founding of the first passenger and freight line in the country, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, in 1827, and the "Laying of the First Stone" ceremonies and the beginning of its long construction heading westward over the obstacles of the Appalachian Mountains eastern chain in the next year. It flourished with continuous railway building projects for the next 45 years until the financial Panic of 1873, followed by a major economic depression, that bankrupted many companies and temporarily stymied and ended growth.
The Oregon and California Railroad was formed from the Oregon Central Railroad when it was the first to operate a 20-mile (32 km) stretch south of Portland in 1869. This qualified the railroad for land grants in California, whereupon the name of the railroad soon changed to Oregon & California Rail Road Company. In 1887, the line was completed over Siskiyou Summit, and the Southern Pacific Railroad assumed control of the railroad, although it was not officially sold to Southern Pacific until January 3, 1927. This route was eventually spun off from the Southern Pacific as the Central Oregon and Pacific Railroad.
The Kansas Pacific Railway (KP) was a historic railroad company that operated in the western United States in the late 19th century. It was a federally chartered railroad, backed with government land grants. At a time when the first transcontinental railroad was being constructed by the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific, it tried and failed to join the transcontinental ranks. It was originally the "Union Pacific, Eastern Division", although it was completely independent. The Pennsylvania Railroad, working with Missouri financiers, designed it as a feeder line to the transcontinental system. The owners lobbied heavily in Washington for money to build a railroad from Kansas City to Colorado, and then to California. It failed to get funding to go west of Colorado. It operated many of the first long-distance lines in the state of Kansas in the 1870s, extending the national railway network westward across that state and into Colorado. Its main line furnished a principal transportation route that opened up settlement of the central Great Plains, and its link from Kansas City to Denver provided the last link in the coast-to-coast railway network in 1870. The railroad was consolidated with the Union Pacific in 1880, and its mainline continues to be an integral part of the Union Pacific network today.
The Texas and Pacific Railway Company was created by federal charter in 1871 with the purpose of building a southern transcontinental railroad between Marshall, Texas, and San Diego, California.
Alameda Terminal was a railroad station and ferry wharf at the foot and west of present-day Pacific Avenue and Main Street in Alameda, California, on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay with ferry service to San Francisco. It was built in 1864 and operated by the San Francisco and Alameda Railroad. In 1869, it served as the original west coast terminus of the U.S. First transcontinental railroad, until the opening of Oakland Pier two months later. The western terminus was inaugurated September 6, 1869, when the first Western Pacific through train from Sacramento reached the shores of San Francisco Bay at Alameda Terminal, — thus completing the first transcontinental railroad "from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean" in accordance with the Pacific Railroad Acts.
The Central Branch Union Pacific Railroad was a railroad in the U.S. state of Kansas. Originally planned as a line from Atchison west into Colorado, and given federal land grants by the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 as one of the branches of the Union Pacific Railroad, it was left with a hanging end at Waterville, Kansas, when the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division, with which it was to connect, changed its route. The line was acquired by the Union Pacific through a stock purchase by Jay Gould and leased to the Missouri Pacific Railroad in 1880. In 1909 the Central Branch was merged into the Missouri Pacific; the latter company came back into the Union Pacific system in 1982. In 1991 the remaining trackage west of Frankfort was leased to the Kyle Railroad.
The Pacific Railroad Surveys (1853–1855) were a series of explorations of the American West designed to find and document possible routes for a transcontinental railroad across North America. The expeditions included surveyors, scientists, and artists and resulted in an immense body of data covering at least 400,000 square miles (1,000,000 km2) on the American West. "These volumes... constitute probably the most important single contemporary source of knowledge on Western geography and history and their value is greatly enhanced by the inclusion of many beautiful plates in color of scenery, native inhabitants, fauna and flora of the Western country." Published by the United States War Department from 1855 to 1860, the surveys contained significant material on natural history, including many illustrations of reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals. In addition to describing the route, these surveys also reported on the geology, zoology, botany, paleontology of the land as well as provided ethnographic descriptions of the Native peoples encountered during the surveys.
The Oakland Long Wharf was an 11,000-foot railroad wharf and ferry pier along the east shore of San Francisco Bay located at the foot of Seventh Street in West Oakland. The Oakland Long Wharf was built, beginning 1868, by the Central Pacific Railroad on what was previously Oakland Point. Beginning November 8, 1869, it served as the west coast terminus of the First transcontinental railroad. In the 1880s, Southern Pacific Railroad took over the CPRR, extending it and creating a new ferry terminal building with the official station name Oakland Pier. The entire structure became commonly and popularly called the Oakland Mole. Portions of the Wharf lasted until the 1960s. The site is now part of the facilities of the Port of Oakland, while passenger train service operates at the nearby Jack London Square/Dellums Station and another nearby station in Emeryville.
The first transcontinental telegraph was a line that connected the existing telegraph network in the eastern United States to a small network in California, by means of a link between Omaha, Nebraska and Carson City, Nevada, via Salt Lake City. It was a milestone in electrical engineering and in the formation of the United States. It served as the only method of near-instantaneous communication between the east and west coasts during the 1860s. For comparison, in 1841, the news of the death of President William Henry Harrison had taken 110 days to reach Los Angeles.
The Pacific Telegraph Act of 1860, was an Act of Congress that authorized the U.S. Treasury to fund the construction of a telegraph line across the continental United States. It was signed into law by President James Buchanan on June 16, 1860, and called for the facilitation of communication between the east and west coasts of the United States of America. Hiram Sibley of the Western Union Telegraph Company won the contract. In 1861, Benjamin Franklin Ficklin joined Hiram Sibley in helping to form the Pacific Telegraph Company of Nebraska. At the same time, Jeptha Wade was asked by Hiram Sibley to consolidate smaller telegraph companies in California. While the Pacific Telegraph Company built west from Omaha, Nebraska, the Overland Telegraph Company of California was thus formed and built east from Carson City, Nevada. With their connection in Salt Lake City, Utah on October 24, 1861, the final link between the east and west coasts of the United States of America was made by telegraph. The First Transcontinental Telegraph lead to the immediate demise of the Pony Express. The Pacific Telegraph Company and the Overland Telegraph Company of California were eventually absorbed into the Western Union Telegraph Company.
The Senate Committee on the Pacific Railroad is a defunct committee of the United States Senate. It was first established as a select committee on July 7, 1861, to examine legislation to authorize construction of a transcontinental railroad.
The Oregon Central Rail Road was the name of two railroad companies in the U.S. state of Oregon, each of which claimed federal land grants that had been assigned to the state in 1866 to assist in building a line from Portland south into California. The "East Side Company" of Salem, supported by businessman Ben Holladay, eventually received the grant for its line east of the Willamette River, and was reorganized in 1870 as the Oregon and California Railroad (O&C), which completed the line in 1887. Portland supported the competing "West Side Company", which only built to McMinnville, and was sold to the O&C in 1880. The O&C was later acquired by the Southern Pacific Company, and mostly remains as part of the Union Pacific Railroad's I-5 Corridor; the West Side line is now operated by the Portland and Western Railroad between Beaverton and Forest Grove.
The Western Pacific Railroad (1862–1870) 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.
The New Mexican Railway Company was incorporated in the Territorial Legislature of New Mexico on Feb 2, 1860, prior to the beginning of the American Civil War. Corporate members were Henry Connelly, Antonio J. Otero, who served as a justice of the New Mexico Territorial Supreme Court; Ambrosio Armijo ; José Felipe Chavez, Francisco Chavez; Spruce M. Baird, a judge sent by Texas during the U.S. provisional government of New Mexico to organize their claimed land east of the Rio Grande as the Santa Fe county of Texas; Francisco Perea, José Leandro Perea, who was the uncle of Francisco, Charles B. Clark, José Guadalupe Gallegos, Stephen Boice, William H. Moore, Ceran St. Vrain, Thomas C. de Baca, Merrill Ashurst, Duff Green, John Titus, David R. Porter, Oliver W. Barney, and Philip L. Fox. The Memorial of the New Mexican Railway Company, in Relation to the Pacific Railroad was introduced by Miguel Antonio Otero in the United States Congress on May 21, 1860. It was an argument in favor of the southern route for a transcontinental railroad. Arguments over the central vs. southern route were a part of the complex of insoluble relations between states, dating back to James Gadsden's involvement in 1845. These arguments contributed to the outbreak of the American Civil War. The New Mexican Railway Company was formed in conjunction with the attempt to retain rights of in-state railroad construction oversight within the Territorial government. The act of incorporation stated that company rights and privileges would be forfeited if construction had not begun within a period of five years. Beginning in 1862, after the outbreak of Civil War, the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad of California were granted lands and construction privileges for the First transcontinental railroad project under the Pacific Railway Acts. Construction of this Overland Route was begun in 1863 and completed in 1869. The southern route did not become a reality until 1883, when the Southern Pacific Railroad linked New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico with Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean.
