pacific railroad act

• The Pacific Railroad Act (1862)
• A major goal of Manifest Destiny was linking East to West with a fast, reliable and efficient transport method.
• The new technology of steam locomotives and railroads offered the solution!

  The Pacific Railroad Act authorised the building of the first Transcontinental Railroad:
• • The Central Pacific company began building from Sacramento in California, heading east through the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains
• • The Union Pacific company headed west across the Plains from Omaha, Nebraska.

  This had been made possible by the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty which allowed prospectors (under Army protection) access to Indian land.
• The two ends met at Promontory Point, Utah, in May 1869.
• The new railroad was called the First Transcontinental Railroad.