Most of the actual stitching, of course, was done by low-paid Chinese peasants laboring under extremely dangerous conditions. The Big Four used their power to charge all the market could bear. Lewis quotes eyewitnesses testifying that Governor Stanford's brother, Philip, drove through the city on election day "handing out money liberally" to all who would vote for the bond. Later, Central Pacific acquired the ferries that crossed San Francisco Bay and the riverboat company that plied the waters from San Francisco to Sacramento. In one telling example, Southern California's lemon industry was thriving until CP's rate-fixing officials decided to raise the tariff from $1.00 to $1.15 a box. This resulted in the Central Pacific hiring Chinese workers to replace them. The Central Pacific Railroad On January 8, 1863, Leland Stanford, now governor, officially broke ground in Sacramento to begin construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. What obstacle was faced by the Union Pacific railroad workers but not the Central Pacific workers? After several years of losses, growers began uprooting their orchards and planting different crops. It was directed to " construct a railroad and telegraph line from the Pacific coast, at or near San Francisco, or the navigable waters of the Sacramento River, to the eastern boundary of California. Which factor most contributed to delays in construction for the Central Pacific railroad? On that day, the dream of a transcontinental railroad became a reality when the railheads of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads finally met at Promontory Summit, Utah. The trip included the threat of disease and lack of water. The saga begins in 1861, when four Sacramento merchants -- Leland Stanford (groceries), Charles Crocker (dry goods) and Collis Huntington and Mark Hopkins (hardware stores) -- founded the Central Pacific. -- Greyhound. Although SP will soon vanish, its legacy lives on in thriving businesses and institutions such as Sprint, Stanford University, Huntington Library and Sunset magazine. But "we have a different notion of business ethics today than existed then.". But the line was only the foundation of the Big Four's empire. By 1866 the Union Pacific had managed to import Irishmen from among the thousands of demobilized soldiers living in the teeming cities on the east coast, and eager for work. The Big Four also received proceeds from the sale of $59 million in 30-year railroad bonds backed by the U.S. government. The railroad business was going through very difficult times.". "Doc" Emmett Brown and Marty McFly took the opportunity to ask the engineerwhether a steam locomotive could go as fast as ninety miles per hour (which theoretically could be done if the train wasn't hauling any cars behind it and if the boiler was heated to dangerous leve… To find out how much it could charge, the railroad often claimed the right to inspect a customer's financial records. -- CalTrain. They bought into an idea from Theodore Dehone Judah, a civil engineer who dreamed of constructing a transcontinental rail line from California to the East. Southern Pacific did not create Yosemite and Sequoia, but the railroad helped push through legislation to create them. SP sold it five years ago to the Joint Powers Authority -- the counties of San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo -- for $230 million. It is a story of four rapacious robber barons who created a corporation of almost inconceivable power and avarice. Except for the 26 months between December 1917 and March 1920 -- when the federal government took over the railroads during World War I and the Great Depression -- the railroad flourished into the 1950s. Which best describes why President Lincoln supported the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862? In 1863, San Francisco voters were voting on a bond measure to help finance the Central Pacific. The Central Pacific Railroad began in Council Buff, Nebraska. What was the most important reason for building the transcontinental railroad? What did the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 accomplish? The railroad ended in Promontory, Utah. While many of these businesses were profitable, SP's rail infrastructure deteriorated. Anschutz's acquisition made matters worse because it doubled SP's debt to $1.4 billion. The push to Salt Lake City would be easier now. It looks like your browser needs an update. Planes could move high-value, time-sensitive goods more quickly than trains, and trucks could go from the shipper's to the customer's door. What ceremony was held at Promontory Summit, Utah on May 10th, 1869? SP apologists point out that the railroad helped create the state's timber and agriculture industries. What was the main reason why Leland Stanford and Thomas Durant wanted to build a transcontinental railroad? Realizing its mistake, SP lowered the rate back to $1.00. The name Southern Pacific, which originated as Central Pacific in Sacramento in 1861, will fade into obscurity. a shortage of supplies that had to be shipped around South America. The Central Pacific began laying track eastward from Sacramento, California, in 1863, and the Union Pacific started westward from Omaha, Nebraska, two years later. SP's Motor Transport Co. is one of many bus lines that merged to form Greyhound. But three years later, the ICC rejected the rail merger, contending it would stifle competition. The Central Pacific Railroad grade, parallel to the UPRR grade through most of Utah, resulted in Mormons working for both railroads. Through asset sales and internal cost cutting, SP reduced its workforce by 5,700 people between 1988 and 1995, bringing its payroll to 19,000. But in the end, it collapsed for the same reason other smokestack companies fell: It failed to reinvent itself quickly enough in an age of ruthless efficiency. -- Amtrak. Chinese laborers. And antitrust law wasn't given teeth until the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. On Friday, September 4, 1885, the train brought the town's new school teacher Clara Clayton among its passengers, and delivered the clock for the new courthouse. Richard Oris, history professor at California State University at Hayward, contrasted the two faces of SP in a 1975 article in the California Historical Quarterly. Stanford drove the famous golden spike to connect the two lines at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869. 1863. Many considered a railroad running through the nation's interior to be the key to westward expansion and the future of the country. The event — marked by the driving of a golden spike to complete the line — brought to a finish a grueling 7-year journey that began when President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Pacific Railroad Act on July 1, 1862. And they downplay such incidents as the legendary battle of Mussel Slough, a violent confrontation that left eight people dead. Commissioners Organize Union Pacific Railroad. The company's grip on the state was not loosened until Hirman Johnson was elected governor in 1910 on a platform of pushing the company out of politics. The document endorses Central Pacific efforts to build the California line while simultaneously chartering a Union Pacific Railroad Company to build west from the Missouri River. 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