Transcontinental Railroad Reading Center
Directions:
1. Pick one reading to read closely
2. Read the piece 2 times if time permits.
3. Ask yourself:
4, Respond in your notebook, answering one of the questions above.
2. Read the piece 2 times if time permits.
3. Ask yourself:
- What type of document is this (a journal entry? A song? A newspaper article?)
- What do you know about who wrote it and when?
- What does this piece teach us about the time period?
- Why was it written?
- How do you think the author feels about the time period/event in consideration?
- If there was a debate about this topic, what position might the author take?
4, Respond in your notebook, answering one of the questions above.
Newspaper Articles written during the building of the railroad
DUTCH FLAT ENQUIRER
Saturday Morning, April 21, 1966
TERRIBLE EXPLOSION.—A terrible explosion occurred at Camp 9, on the line of C. P. Railroad, just below Gold Run, on Tuesday last, killing two white men and five Chinamen. We have been unable to learn any of the particulars as to the cause of the fatal calamity, further than it is supposed to have been the result of carelessness on the part of the foreman, one of the number killed. It seems to be customary with foreman along the railroad to try the material to be blasted with a few pounds of powder previous to the regular charge which not unfrequently reaches seven and eight kegs. This is supposed to have been the mode of procedure in the instance resulting so disastrously, and that the main charge was negligently deposited before the fused used in the trying process had been extinguished.
LAND SLIDE.—A huge land slide occurred a few days since near Buckley's ranch, just above this place, on the line of the C. P. Railroad, damaging the ditches of the Dutch Flat Water Company to the amount of several thousand dollars, and rendering a change of the railroad bed necessary, which will also cost an immense sum. Nearly a quarter section, extending along a heavy fill of the railroad several hundred yards, suddenly gave way and moved off in a solid body, taking with it ditches, flumes and everything else that obstructed its course, and making a change from the original survey of the railroad at that point imperative. The material that gave way, it seems, was of a soapy or pipe clay formation, and the pressure from the railroad fill is assigned as the cause.
Saturday Morning, April 21, 1966
TERRIBLE EXPLOSION.—A terrible explosion occurred at Camp 9, on the line of C. P. Railroad, just below Gold Run, on Tuesday last, killing two white men and five Chinamen. We have been unable to learn any of the particulars as to the cause of the fatal calamity, further than it is supposed to have been the result of carelessness on the part of the foreman, one of the number killed. It seems to be customary with foreman along the railroad to try the material to be blasted with a few pounds of powder previous to the regular charge which not unfrequently reaches seven and eight kegs. This is supposed to have been the mode of procedure in the instance resulting so disastrously, and that the main charge was negligently deposited before the fused used in the trying process had been extinguished.
LAND SLIDE.—A huge land slide occurred a few days since near Buckley's ranch, just above this place, on the line of the C. P. Railroad, damaging the ditches of the Dutch Flat Water Company to the amount of several thousand dollars, and rendering a change of the railroad bed necessary, which will also cost an immense sum. Nearly a quarter section, extending along a heavy fill of the railroad several hundred yards, suddenly gave way and moved off in a solid body, taking with it ditches, flumes and everything else that obstructed its course, and making a change from the original survey of the railroad at that point imperative. The material that gave way, it seems, was of a soapy or pipe clay formation, and the pressure from the railroad fill is assigned as the cause.
Quote by General Sherman about Native Americans and the building of the railroad
“No interruption to the work upon the line of the Union Pacific will be tolerated. Both the Sioux (another name for Lakota) and the Cheyenne must die, or submit”
- General William Tecumseh Sherman
***Sioux and Cheyenne are the names of different Native American tribes in the West
- General William Tecumseh Sherman
***Sioux and Cheyenne are the names of different Native American tribes in the West
The Wedding of the Rails
John Todd, a minister from Massachusetts, traveled widely in the West during the 1860s. He published a book about his experiences called The Sunset Land in 1870. Todd was present at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory, on May 10, 1869, when the Transcontinental Railroad was completed. Following is an excerpt of his account of the "wedding of the rails."
. . . We are on a plateau, surrounded by dreary mountains. That bold headland yonder is the object at which thousands of men, on both roads, have been looking for six years. It is "Promontory Point," on the very back-bone of the continent. Engines and trains from the East, and engines and trains from the West, some covered with flags, stand facing each other. A rod or two between them has, as yet, no ties and no rails.
One man, West Evans, who had furnished the Central company with two hundred and fifty thousand ties, and who had furnished the first tie put down, was there with the last, a beautiful specimen of the California laurel, which was duly laid down, and then taken up and preserved. The ties of the Central road were all sawed, of red wood; those of the Union were hewed.
At the appointed time, the Master Spirits of the two roads meet. White workmen from the East and olive Chinamen from the West meet, bearing the last sleepers and the last rails. . . . A regiment of soldiers, on their way to Alaska, are present to see the occasion. Telegraph arrangements have been made, so that every telegraph in the land shall be connected. . . .
At the appointed hour, the last tie is laid; and now, before the rails are laid, the telegraph flashes through the country, "Are you all ready?" Back, from scores of cities comes the echo, "All ready." Again the telegraph says, "At the third tap" it will be done. "We understand," say the wires. In Washington, Cincinnati, Chicago, all the western cities, in New York, Boston, even in Halifax, in all the Pacific cities, people stand grouped and breathless around the telegraph offices. "We are now going to attend prayers—hats off," say the wires, and in all these places they take off hats and listen to the prayer as it leaps over the wires, sentence by sentence, to places four thousand miles apart.
The Governors of four States or Territories, with their gold and silver spikes, are there—each golden one having nearly four hundred dollars in it. And now the last rail is laid and spiked. A telegraph wire is coiled around a silver hammer, and the President of the Central Pacific just taps the head of the golden spike! That tap proclaimed to the country, and through Europe, that the work is done! The railroads are wedded into one! That gentle tap fired the big gun which the officer was watching at the Fort, and instantly set all the bells in the land a ringing, and announced that the greatest work ever attempted in railroads was a success! In three minutes the telegrams came back from all the cities—"The bells are ringing, and the people rejoicing." The whole thing seemed a wild dream. . . .
This was May 10, 1869. The little ring on my finger, bearing the significant words, "The Mountain Wedding, May 10, 1869," and presented me in commemoration of the occasion, was made, as I know certainly, from a piece of one of the golden spikes. And thus the marriage [took place], under the bright sun, in the desert place, and under the eye of Promontory Point—hereafter to become historical.
Library of Congress, General Collections.
. . . We are on a plateau, surrounded by dreary mountains. That bold headland yonder is the object at which thousands of men, on both roads, have been looking for six years. It is "Promontory Point," on the very back-bone of the continent. Engines and trains from the East, and engines and trains from the West, some covered with flags, stand facing each other. A rod or two between them has, as yet, no ties and no rails.
One man, West Evans, who had furnished the Central company with two hundred and fifty thousand ties, and who had furnished the first tie put down, was there with the last, a beautiful specimen of the California laurel, which was duly laid down, and then taken up and preserved. The ties of the Central road were all sawed, of red wood; those of the Union were hewed.
At the appointed time, the Master Spirits of the two roads meet. White workmen from the East and olive Chinamen from the West meet, bearing the last sleepers and the last rails. . . . A regiment of soldiers, on their way to Alaska, are present to see the occasion. Telegraph arrangements have been made, so that every telegraph in the land shall be connected. . . .
At the appointed hour, the last tie is laid; and now, before the rails are laid, the telegraph flashes through the country, "Are you all ready?" Back, from scores of cities comes the echo, "All ready." Again the telegraph says, "At the third tap" it will be done. "We understand," say the wires. In Washington, Cincinnati, Chicago, all the western cities, in New York, Boston, even in Halifax, in all the Pacific cities, people stand grouped and breathless around the telegraph offices. "We are now going to attend prayers—hats off," say the wires, and in all these places they take off hats and listen to the prayer as it leaps over the wires, sentence by sentence, to places four thousand miles apart.
The Governors of four States or Territories, with their gold and silver spikes, are there—each golden one having nearly four hundred dollars in it. And now the last rail is laid and spiked. A telegraph wire is coiled around a silver hammer, and the President of the Central Pacific just taps the head of the golden spike! That tap proclaimed to the country, and through Europe, that the work is done! The railroads are wedded into one! That gentle tap fired the big gun which the officer was watching at the Fort, and instantly set all the bells in the land a ringing, and announced that the greatest work ever attempted in railroads was a success! In three minutes the telegrams came back from all the cities—"The bells are ringing, and the people rejoicing." The whole thing seemed a wild dream. . . .
This was May 10, 1869. The little ring on my finger, bearing the significant words, "The Mountain Wedding, May 10, 1869," and presented me in commemoration of the occasion, was made, as I know certainly, from a piece of one of the golden spikes. And thus the marriage [took place], under the bright sun, in the desert place, and under the eye of Promontory Point—hereafter to become historical.
Library of Congress, General Collections.
Interview about Buffalo and the building of the railroad, PBS.ORG
Interview with Donald Fixico, Professor of American Indian History at the University of Kansas.
Why is the buffalo important to Native Americans?
The buffalo is a great symbol and great being to the Plains people because it's really their staff of life and even more than that. The Plains Indians had developed their cultures, communities and way of life around the buffalo. At the utmost, the 24 to 28 Plains tribes had figured out how to use the buffalo in 52 different ways for food, supplies, war and hunting implements, things like that. And so, the hooves, for example, are boiled to use as glue. The hump back is, that part of the buffalo is really kind of sturdy, and so it's used for making shields, the hides for making a teepee, for example. It took about 12 to 14 hides to do that. The buffalo was indeed plentiful and was the most important natural resource to the Plains Indians.
How did white settlers view the buffalo?
It became obvious that Indians and whites viewed the buffalo from differing points of view. Plains Indians had learned to hunt the buffalo skillfully with a bow and arrow, while the white professional hunter hired to supply meat to railroad crews used a rifle of long distance accuracy. While the Indians became dependent upon the buffalo, Anglo-American culture stressed the cultivation of the land as agrarians with less importance placed on the numerous buffalo. As a result, the buffalo was hunted for sport by the white professional hunters and sportsmen. In contrast, the American Indian of the West had developed a cultural importance on the buffalo as the center of ceremonial and daily life.
Is it true that the buffalo nearly became extinct?
It has been estimated that the West held as many as 15 million to 60 million buffalo at the arrival of the white man. Even with the lowest estimate, the number was severely depleted as a result of the introduction of the transcontinental railroad to the Western homeland of the Plains Indian tribes. By the end of the 1870s, the buffalo was on its way to extinction with an alarmingly low number of less than 1,000 in the West by the end of the 19th century. Rapid American expansion in the West in less than 50 years caused catastrophic results for the great animal called the American bison. We're talking about an animal that was almost literally erased from this earth.
What factors contributed to the buffalo's disappearance?
One might imagine that waves of technology involving the railroad, economics of a ranching frontier for cattle and mining frontier for gold and silver, ecological disturbance of agrarianism changing the habits of the buffalo, and demographic change of white settlements, towns, then cities in the West represented the major causes for the destruction of the buffalo. All of these factors did not occur at once, but in an overlapping pattern and movement called Manifest Destiny, American expansion in the West had changed the balance of nature permanently.
Did the transcontinental railroad impact buffalo herds?
One might call this a "permanent corridor" that resulted in the demise of the bison in the West. Permanent railroad tracks, depletion of trees for railroad ties and bridges, and decreasing the wild game established an everlasting foreign presence in the indigenous West that would be changed to the American West with a new character called the "frontier." Something had changed forever! The white man may think that he owns the land, but he does not own the Earth. We are reminded of this important lesson, even the earliest white pioneers learned this important lesson trying to carve out homes made of sod on the plains. On the plains, we learn to look up when thunderclouds form and turn black. We are reminded of the power of Nature when it thunders and bright streaks of lightning shoot across the sky. We fear tornadoes, or else we are fools.
How did the Plains Indians react to the loss of buffalo?
For the Plains Indians tribes, it affected their whole scheme of life, and understanding of their Universe. And they saw that their life was being taken away from them. Plains Indians began to realize that they were going to have to do something and to fight for their lands, in a way to fight for the buffalo. They're defending their lands. I mean anyone would defend their lands, their homelands.
Could the railroad and the world of the Plains Indians have co-existed?
It would seem unlikely that the railroad and the Plains Indian and buffalo could live together in one rapidly changing world. The problem emerged with the railroad bringing an increasing number of white settlers and opportunists to the West, once the homeland for both the Plains Indian and the buffalo. Incongruent sets of cultural values and polarized mindsets found the Plains Indians and white settlers at odds. Such differences between Indians and Europeans would not allow them to live together until one defeated the other. More than a thousand wars were fought -- Indian versus white. One way of life against another one, but the victor does not always win. Hopefully, he learns. Hopefully, he learns that he must learn to live with and co-exist in other human beings for all living things are not the same.
The railroad brought so much change at a rapid, exhilarating rate. It meant change in the lives of Indian people, white settlers, even the game in the area. In a way, it was the mark of an era, an era that meant perhaps even national completeness. It was a change beyond the control of the Indian, beyond his comprehension. And, such change was beyond the control of the white man, too! Perhaps, it takes a long time for two such different people to live side by side. When you think about it, a hundred years is not very long -- and that was the 20th century. Perhaps, in the 21st century, we are supposed to live and work together.
Why is the buffalo important to Native Americans?
The buffalo is a great symbol and great being to the Plains people because it's really their staff of life and even more than that. The Plains Indians had developed their cultures, communities and way of life around the buffalo. At the utmost, the 24 to 28 Plains tribes had figured out how to use the buffalo in 52 different ways for food, supplies, war and hunting implements, things like that. And so, the hooves, for example, are boiled to use as glue. The hump back is, that part of the buffalo is really kind of sturdy, and so it's used for making shields, the hides for making a teepee, for example. It took about 12 to 14 hides to do that. The buffalo was indeed plentiful and was the most important natural resource to the Plains Indians.
How did white settlers view the buffalo?
It became obvious that Indians and whites viewed the buffalo from differing points of view. Plains Indians had learned to hunt the buffalo skillfully with a bow and arrow, while the white professional hunter hired to supply meat to railroad crews used a rifle of long distance accuracy. While the Indians became dependent upon the buffalo, Anglo-American culture stressed the cultivation of the land as agrarians with less importance placed on the numerous buffalo. As a result, the buffalo was hunted for sport by the white professional hunters and sportsmen. In contrast, the American Indian of the West had developed a cultural importance on the buffalo as the center of ceremonial and daily life.
Is it true that the buffalo nearly became extinct?
It has been estimated that the West held as many as 15 million to 60 million buffalo at the arrival of the white man. Even with the lowest estimate, the number was severely depleted as a result of the introduction of the transcontinental railroad to the Western homeland of the Plains Indian tribes. By the end of the 1870s, the buffalo was on its way to extinction with an alarmingly low number of less than 1,000 in the West by the end of the 19th century. Rapid American expansion in the West in less than 50 years caused catastrophic results for the great animal called the American bison. We're talking about an animal that was almost literally erased from this earth.
What factors contributed to the buffalo's disappearance?
One might imagine that waves of technology involving the railroad, economics of a ranching frontier for cattle and mining frontier for gold and silver, ecological disturbance of agrarianism changing the habits of the buffalo, and demographic change of white settlements, towns, then cities in the West represented the major causes for the destruction of the buffalo. All of these factors did not occur at once, but in an overlapping pattern and movement called Manifest Destiny, American expansion in the West had changed the balance of nature permanently.
Did the transcontinental railroad impact buffalo herds?
One might call this a "permanent corridor" that resulted in the demise of the bison in the West. Permanent railroad tracks, depletion of trees for railroad ties and bridges, and decreasing the wild game established an everlasting foreign presence in the indigenous West that would be changed to the American West with a new character called the "frontier." Something had changed forever! The white man may think that he owns the land, but he does not own the Earth. We are reminded of this important lesson, even the earliest white pioneers learned this important lesson trying to carve out homes made of sod on the plains. On the plains, we learn to look up when thunderclouds form and turn black. We are reminded of the power of Nature when it thunders and bright streaks of lightning shoot across the sky. We fear tornadoes, or else we are fools.
How did the Plains Indians react to the loss of buffalo?
For the Plains Indians tribes, it affected their whole scheme of life, and understanding of their Universe. And they saw that their life was being taken away from them. Plains Indians began to realize that they were going to have to do something and to fight for their lands, in a way to fight for the buffalo. They're defending their lands. I mean anyone would defend their lands, their homelands.
Could the railroad and the world of the Plains Indians have co-existed?
It would seem unlikely that the railroad and the Plains Indian and buffalo could live together in one rapidly changing world. The problem emerged with the railroad bringing an increasing number of white settlers and opportunists to the West, once the homeland for both the Plains Indian and the buffalo. Incongruent sets of cultural values and polarized mindsets found the Plains Indians and white settlers at odds. Such differences between Indians and Europeans would not allow them to live together until one defeated the other. More than a thousand wars were fought -- Indian versus white. One way of life against another one, but the victor does not always win. Hopefully, he learns. Hopefully, he learns that he must learn to live with and co-exist in other human beings for all living things are not the same.
The railroad brought so much change at a rapid, exhilarating rate. It meant change in the lives of Indian people, white settlers, even the game in the area. In a way, it was the mark of an era, an era that meant perhaps even national completeness. It was a change beyond the control of the Indian, beyond his comprehension. And, such change was beyond the control of the white man, too! Perhaps, it takes a long time for two such different people to live side by side. When you think about it, a hundred years is not very long -- and that was the 20th century. Perhaps, in the 21st century, we are supposed to live and work together.