The Pacific Railroad Act (July 1862)

• The Pacific Railroad Act 


  July 1862
• The Pacific Railroad Act encouraged transcontinental railroad building. The government wanted to connect the agricultural West to the big northern cities.

  
• The Act split the job between two companies: 


  • The Union Pacific started in Nebraska and built west;
  • The Central Pacific started in California and built east.
  • The two ends met at Promontory Point, Utah, in May 1869
• Building a 2000km railway

  Challenge: difficult and expensive. No private company would risk taking it on.

  Solution: The government loaned each company $16,000 for every mile of track built ($48,000 for mountain areas). They also gave the companies large areas of public land along the railroad for them to sell.
• Disagreements

  Challenge: the North wanted to connect California with its big cities (e.g. Chicago) but the South wanted the railway to come through the southern states.

  Solution: After the southern states left the Union in 1861, the northern states could decide where the railroad went. They chose a route from Sacramento, California to Omaha, Nebraska.
• The new railroad was called the First Transcontinental Railroad.
• Settlers & Farmers

  Farmers could transport crops to sell in the big Eastern cities

  Encouraged European immigration – each company had a Bureau of Immigration

  Made travelling West quicker and cheaper

  Towns along the route grew rapidly

  Settlers could buy products from the cities
• Plains Indians

  Declining buffalo numbers – the tracks destroyed grassland and brought hunters

  Plains Indians moved away from rail routes

  Indian attacks on railroad builders led to conflict with the Army

  Allowed even more white settlers to invade Plains Indian land
• Cattle industry

  Growth of the cattle industry – cattlemen could now move and sell cattle in the big cities
• National impacts

  Integrated western territories into the East

  Many felt “Manifest Destiny” was achieved

  Increased trade - economic benefits