Transcript The Transcontinental Railroad

The Transcontinental
Railroad
Slide #1
The Transcontinental
Railroad
Railroads had changed life in the East, but at
the end of the Civil War railroad tracks still
stopped at the Missouri River. Men dreamed of
building a line from coast to coast.
Slide #2
Problems With Travel
Before 1860, transportation was
slow and costly. People traveled west
by horses, wagons or by stage coach.
Railroads were not connected and did
not go past the Missouri River. People
had to switch from one means of travel
to another. Some traveled west by ship
around South America which took
several months.
Slide #3
The Transcontinental
Railroad
In 1862, Congress hired two companies to build
these tracks. The Central Pacific was to push
eastward from Sacramento, over the Sierra
Nevada Mountains. The Union Pacific was to
start from Omaha Nebraska, cross the Great
Plains and cut through the Rockies.
Slide #4
The Transcontinental
Railroad
It was 1,775
miles from
Omaha,
Nebraska to
Sacramento,
California.
Slide #5
Two Railroads…….. One Goal
……….to link the East and West
Union Pacific
Started in Omaha,
Nebraska
Built tracks across the
Great Plains
Did not have enough
workers
Was away from towns and
cities.
Had conflicts with Native
Americans
Central Pacific
Started in Sacramento,
California
Built tracks across the
Sierra Nevada Mountains
Did not have enough
workers
Used explosives that made
work dangerous.
Many workers were killed.
Slide #6
The Transcontinental Railroad
Railroad workers had a hard job. They would
have to cut a path through high mountains;
across deserts where there was no water; and
across treeless prairies where Native American
tribes would try to block their path and defend
their homelands.
Slide #7
Promontory Point, Utah
Omaha, Nebraska
.
Central
Pacific
Railroad
x
Union Pacific
Railroad
.
J
j
Sacramento,
California
In 1863, two companies, the Union Pacific and the Central
Pacific, began to build the first transcontinental railroad.
Slide #8
The Transcontinental
Railroad
The railroad companies would be paid in land and
money for every mile of track laid. The Union Pacific
and Central Pacific were in a race to see who could
lay the most track – also to get the most land and
money. The two lines would meet somewhere in the
West.
Slide #9
The Transcontinental
Railroad
Both railroads had a shortage of workers. The Civil
War was still going on in the East and men were
needed for the armies. Railroads solved their work
force problem by hiring immigrant workers.
Immigrants were people from other countries who
moved to the United States looking to find more and
better opportunities.
.
Slide #10
The Transcontinental
Railroad
The Union Pacific hired Irish immigrants. The
Central Pacific hired Chinese immigrants. The
work was hard and sometimes dangerous.
These immigrants worked for low pay and
worked long hours laying as much as ten miles
of track per day.
Slide #11
The Transcontinental
Railroad
The workers survived scorching deserts, blinding
snowstorms, and blasted through mountains to finish the railroad.
Chinese railroad workers in the snow.
Slide #12
The Transcontinental
Railroad
May 10, 1869, The Central Pacific and the Union
Pacific met at Promontory Point, Utah. The
presidents of both railroads, swung at the last
gold spike. The Transcontinental Railroad was
now complete.
Slide #13
The Transcontinental
Railroad
Locate Promontory Point on the map below.
Slide #14
The Impact of the
Railroads
Before the railroads, each town kept its own
time. Railroad companies needed a more exact
time system. They devised a system with four
time zones – Eastern, Central, Mountain and
Pacific time. Every place in the same time zone
had the same time.
Slide #15
The Impact of the
Railroads
The railroads started economic growth.
Steelworkers produced tons of steel for
tracks and engines. Lumberjacks supplied
wood for railroad ties. Miners dug coal to
fuel the engines.
Slide #16
The Impact of the
Railroads
The railroads opened the whole country to
settlement and growth. A positive effect was
that goods and people could be transported
more easily, quickly and less costly. However
this growth and settlement had a negative
effect on the way of life for the Native
Americans of the Great Plains region.
Slide #17
The Impact of the
Railroads
The culture of the
Plains Indians depended
on the buffalo. The
buffalo provided meat for
food, skins for clothing
and shelter coverings,
bones and horns used for
tools and weapons. The
growing number of
trains, people and
settlements drove the
buffalo and Plains Indians
from their homeland.
Slide #18
The Transcontinental Railroad
The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in
1869 linked the East to the West. A trip across
country that once took as long as six months would
only take one week. The Transcontinental Railroad
revolutionized transportation and opened the path
for Westward Expansion of the United States.
Slide #19
Credits
Slide show created by Marie Sontag,  2001 [email protected]
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/program/episodes/five/grandanvil.htm
http://www.linecamp.com/museums/americanwest/western_clubs/central_pacific_railroad/central_pacific_railroad.
html
http://search.biography.com/cgibin/frameit.cgi?p=http%3A//search.biography.com/print_record.pl%3Fid%3D16083
http://www.linecamp.com/museums/americanwest/western_names/huntington_collis/huntington_collis.html
http://search.biography.com/cgibin/frameit.cgi?p=http%3A//search.biography.com/print_record.pl%3Fid%3D13931
http://www.linecamp.com/museums/americanwest/western_names/crocker_charles/crocker_charles.html
http://search.biography.com/cgibin/frameit.cgi?p=http%3A//search.biography.com/print_record.pl%3Fid%3D19689
http://www.linecamp.com/museums/americanwest/western_names/stanford_leland/stanford_leland.html
http://www.linecamp.com/museums/americanwest/western_names/hopkins_mark/hopkins_mark.html
Slide show modified and adapted by Sheilah Mervin [email protected] ~ 7/08/2010
Additional sounds and images retrieved from;
www.free-loops.com
www.audiomocro.com
http://www.eaze.com/nativeheart/music1.html
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