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Railroads and the Turn of the Century
1860-1910
The Iron Rush: Building the Pacific Railroad



During the 1850s, gold mining changed from a treasure hunt to an industry. What had originally been an everyman's opportunity became an industrial scale effort. The poor mine who failed to strike his own claim became a wage earner in mining operations owned by small groups of investors (who stood to profit handsomely from the blood, sweat, and risked-lives of their workers).

Without thought for the near or for the long term consequences of their efforts, and the industry's impact on the natural environment, the new breed of industrial miners blasted tunnels, built dams, diverted massive water supplies, and slammed mountain sides with hydraulic water pumps, and tore up the earth and forests in their quest for gold. At the time, the natural resources of California seemed inexhaustible.. like they would last forever.

But gold was not the only resource in demand. The forests were being logged at an unheard of rate to build the new towns and cities. And then there was the astounding effort spent to forge a railroad through the granite rock of the Sierra Nevada backcountry. This was a time were the aspiration for riches ran unchecked- if a man could dream it up, he had little to stop him from trying to attain it.

Samuel Clemens, soon to become known worldwide as Mark Twain, was in California at the time. He commented on the entrepreneurial spirit of the times in 1864 " It was a driving, vigorous, restless population that gave California a name for getting up astounding enterprises and rushing them through with a magnificent dash and daring and recklessness of cost or consequence."

The enterprise with the most political dash and engineering daring was the construction of the central Pacific Railroad built to link the west coast to the east coast of the United States. This trans-continental railroad was to make four men legendary in California history, and shaped the future of California.