p.0
I. The Iron Colt Becomes an Iron Horse
1.
2.
3.
○
○
4.
5.
After the Civil War, railroad production grew enormously, from
35,000 mi. of track laid in 1865 to a whopping 192,556 mi. of track laid in 1900.
Congress gave land to railroad companies totally 155,504,994 acres.
For railroad routes, companies were allowed alternate milesquare
Railroads gave land their value; towns where railroads ran became sprawling cities while those skipped by railroads sank into ghost
II. Spanning the Continent with Rails
1. Deadlock over where to build a transcontinental railroad was broken after the South seceded, and in 1862, Congress commissioned the Union Pacific Railroad to begin westward from Omaha, Nebraska, to goldrich
2. Over in California, the Central Pacific Railroad was in charge of extending the railroad eastward, and it was backed by the Big Four: including Leland Stanford, the exgovernor of California who had useful political connections, and Collis P.
Huntington, an adept lobbyist.
○ The Central Pacific used Chinese workers, and received the same incentives as the
Union Pacific, but it had to drill through the hard
III. Binding the Country with Railroad Ties
1. Before 1900, four other transcontinental railroads were built
2. However, many pioneers overinvested on land, and the banks that supported them often failed and went bankrupt when the land wasn’t worth as much as initially thought.
IV. Railroad Consolidation and Mechanization
1. Older eastern railroads, like the New York Central, headed by Cornelius Vanderbilt, often financed the successful western railroads.
2. Advancements in railroads included the steel rail, which was stronger and more enduring than the iron rail, the Westinghouse air brake which increased safety, the
Pullman Palace Cars which were luxurious passenger cars, and telegraphs, doubleracking, and block signals.
V. Revolution by Railways
1. Railroads stitched the nation together, generated a