Transcript Impact of the Railroads

Railroads
Featured Reference
Ambrose, Stephen E.
2000. Nothing Like It in
the World: The Men
Who Built the
Transcontinental
Railroad 1863-1869.
“After 1850 railroads began expanding
rapidly, linking growing cities and providing
access to market for agricultural and forest
products. Although called the “iron road,”
railroads used far more wood than iron.
Except for the engine and rails, railroads
were made of wood….”
Douglas W. MacCleery,
American Forests [p. 19]
The Transcontinental Railroad
Social Implications
• Mobilized the postCivil War energy of
the nation
• The U.P. and C.P.
were the biggest
corporations of their
time and established
the model for modern
corporations – for
better and worse
Remember Manifest Destiny?
• National security
• John Quincy Adams
– Secretary of State to
James Monroe
– After Washington
was burned in the
War of 1812
California Gold Rush
Charles Crocker
• From Troy, NY
• 27 years old in 1849
• He and 4 other men
headed for California
• Traveling overland
following the Platte
River, it took almost half
a year to reach the gold
fields
Collis Huntington
• Also 27 when struck
with gold fever
• Sailed from New York
to Panama, crossed the
Isthmus, and waited for
a ship to San Francisco
• The journey took 5-1/2
months
Mark Hopkins
• 34 when he sailed for
California from New
York around Cape
Horn on a ship beset by
storms, bad food, a lack
of water, and a
tyrannical captain
• Arrived in San
Francisco after 196 days
• Crocker, Huntington,
and Hopkins became
three-fourths of the
“Big Four” of the
Central Pacific Railroad
• The fourth was Leland
Stanford who was in
California prior to the
Gold Rush
• In 1850, 50,000
emigrants left
Missouri for
California
• 5,000 died of the
cholera
The Military Implication
• California was
taken by
conquest
• How could it be
defended?
• Travel by any
route took at
least two months
Lt. William T. Sherman
• 1846: Mexican War
• Sailed around Cape
Horn for California
with the 3rd Artillery
• The journey lasted
212 days
The Straits of Magellan
“Here we experienced very rough
buffeting about under storm stay-sails,
and spending nearly a month before
the wind favored our passage and
enabled the course of the ship to be
changed for Valparaiso.”
William T. Sherman
Captain U.S. “Sam” Grant
• 1852: The 4th
Infantry Regiment
was sent to
California
• The route was by
ship to Panama,
across the Isthmus,
and by ship to San
Francisco
“In eight days Aspinwall (Panama) was reached. At
that time the streets of the town were eight or ten
inches under water… July is at the height of the wet
season on the Isthmus…. I wondered how anyone
could live many months in Aspinwall, and wondered
still more why anyone tried. Meanwhile the cholera
had broken out, and men were dying every hour….
Altogether, on the Isthmus and on the Pacific side,
we were delayed six weeks. About one-seventh of
those who left New York harbor with the 4th
Infantry… now lie buried on the Isthmus...”
U.S. Grant,
Personal Memoirs
Grenville Mellen Dodge
• Railroad engineer
• On August 13, 1859 in
Council Bluffs, Iowa,
Abraham Lincoln asks
Dodge his ideas of the
best route for a railroad
to the Pacific
Lincoln’s host
“pointed out Dodge
to Lincoln and said
that the young
engineer knew more
about railroads than
any ‘two men in the
country.’”
Stephen Ambrose,
Nothing Like it in the World [p. 23]
Grenville Dodge
• Enlisted in the Union army during the
Civil War
• Rose to the rank of major general
• Served under Grant and Sherman
• After the war, he became chief engineer
of the Union Pacific Railroad
• Dodge City, KS is named in his honor
Significant Legislation
• Pacific Railroad Act of 1862
– Established the Union Pacific Railroad
– First nationally chartered corporation since the Second Bank
of the United States
• Pacific Railroad Act of 1864
– Recognized the role of the Central Pacific
– Permitted the Union Pacific and Central Pacific to sell bonds
(Credit Mobilier)
– Amended in 1866 to authorize the Central Pacific to construct
their road until it joined with the Union Pacific
Railroad Land Grants
• The Federal government granted land to
the railroads to help in their construction
– Began the practice in 1850s
– 10 acres for every mile of track laid in 1862;
increased to 20 acres in 1864
• 129 million acres were granted to
railroads between 1850 and 1870 (7% of
the continental U.S.)
“A race fit perfectly into the business climate of America.
The businessmen spoke little and did much, while the
politicians did as little as possible and spoke much.”
“It was indeed such an American thing to do. A race, a
competition. Build it fast. The company that won would
get the largest share of the land and the biggest share of
the bonds. The cost to the country would be the same if it
took ten years or twenty years or five years to build.
People wanted to get to California, or back east. They
wanted to see the sights, to ship the goods…. And there
was no better way than to set up a competition.
“This was democracy at work.”
Stephen Ambrose,
Nothing Like It in the World [pp. 193-194]
The Work Force
Railroad Camps
Boom Towns
In 1868, the CP began selling lots in
a new Nevada town they named after
Civil War hero Jesse Reno. “…there
was a rush of buyers, and choice
twenty-five-foot lots sold for $1,200
apiece.” (Ambrose, p. 304)
“Hell on Wheels”
Bridges and Trestles
• The Howe truss
• The Chicago Howe
Truss Bridge
Company supplied
prefabricated
sections for bridges
on the U.P.
• Used 12” X 12” – 16’
timbers
Tunnels
Snowsheds
• Constructed by
the Central Pacific
through the
Sierras to keep the
road open during
winter
• The sheds totaled
37 miles in length
They were
constructed of 75
million feet of
timber and 900
tons of bolts and
spikes
Their cost was
more than $2
million
“The sheds remain one of the wonders of
the CP. They were, until replaced with
concrete, one of the wonders of engineering
with wood. The timbers were fifteen feet or
longer, almost as big as big tree trunks.
Photographs continue to astonish and
amaze. Except for their vulnerability to
fire, the thirty-seven miles of sheds would
still be there, being used.”
Stephen Ambrose,
Nothing Like it in the World [p. 304]
May 10, 1869
Promontory Point, Utah
Revolutionizing Transportation
“Of all the things
done by the first
transcontinental
railroad, nothing
exceeded the cuts in
time and cost it made
for people traveling
across the continent.”
Stephen Ambrose,
Nothing Like it in the World [p. 369]
Other transcontinental railroads
were to follow…
•
•
•
•
Northern Pacific
Great Northern
Southern Pacific
Atchison, Topeka &
Santa Fe
“Of the many industries and activities
that depended on the products of the
forest, those of railroad construction
and operation made perhaps the
greatest impact…. There was little
doubt that the railroad meant change,
and in the context of the forest that
could only mean the diminution of the
timber stand.”
Michael Williams,
Americans and Their Forests [p. 344]
“The number of miles of
U.S. railroads increased
from less than ten thousand
miles to more than 350,000
miles between 1850 and
1910. By the late 1800s,
railroads accounted for 20
to 25 percent of the
country’s total
consumption of timber.”
Douglas W. MacCleery,
American Forests [p. 19]
“By far the most significant railroad use of wood
was for crossties. Each mile of track required over
twenty-five hundred ties. Crossties were not
treated with preservatives until after 1900, so
because of their rapid deterioration in contact with
the ground, they had to be replaced every five to
seven years. Given the miles of track in 1910, that
would be equivalent to replacing the ties on over
fifty thousand miles of track annually. Just
replacing railroad ties on a sustained basis required
between fifteen million and twenty million acres of
forest land in 1900.”
Douglas W. MacCleery,
American Forests [p. 19]
• As the Union Pacific
crossed the Great
Plains, the only
available timber for
ties was cottonwood
• Cottonwood is light
and weak, and would
last only a short time
• Ties could be
replaced later.
Winning the race
came first.
“Pullman day cars,
light wood passenger
cars, were introduced
in 1858, while
Pullman sleepers and
dining cars appeared
after the Civil War.
These cars soon
became as luxurious
as the interior of a
Victorian mansion...”
Youngquist and Fleischer,
Wood in American Life [p. 88]
The Logging Railroads
Shay, Heisler & Climax Engines
Logging
railroads
enabled fast &
inexpensive
transportation
of logs out of
the woods
Cass Scenic Railroad
Mobility of the Industry
Bringing Fire to the Forest
“Rail and steam did
everything imaginable
to spread fire.
Locomotives threw
sparks like a Roman
candle chugging down
the tracks. Wood
burners were worse
than coal burners,
which were worse
than oil burners.”
Stephen J. Pyne,
Year of the Fires [p. 43]
“Sparks could kindle only if they found
suitable combustibles. These too the rails
supplied. Railway construction broke open
landscapes, littered their passage with fresh
fuels, promoted fire-hungry weeds among
the ballast…. Rail invited logging, logging
invited farming; each chopped the land into
combustibles, each sprinkled sparks atop
them. Railways through the woods quickly
became burned-out wastelands.”
Stephen J. Pyne,
Year of the Fires [p. 43]
Railroads and the Bison Herd
• Split the herd
because bison would
not cross the tracks
• Brought buffalo
hunters to the West
• Impact on Plains
Indians
Awakening Need for Forest
Conservation
“…even where railroads have penetrated regions
abundantly supplied, we soon find all along its
track timber soon becomes scarce. For every
railroad in the country requires a continued
forest from one end to the other of its lines to
supply it with ties, fuel, and lumber for building
cars.”
Andrew Fuller, 1866
Awakening Need for Forest
Conservation
• Excesses of the railroads
drove many early forest
conservation efforts
• 1881: Establishment of
Forestry Division in
U.S.D.A.
• Franklin B. Hough was
the first chief
“According to (M.G.)
Kern (U.S.D.A.
Forestry Division), the
‘reckless system of
forest clearing’ for
crossties could not go
on indefinitely; the
forest supplies would
run out. He suggested
two remedies: the
preservation of timber
to prevent rotting, and
the planting of new
trees…”
Michael Williams,
Americans and Their Forests [p. 350]
Bernhard Eduard Fernow
• 1886: became chief of the
U.S.D.A. Division of
Forestry
• Advocated substitution and
“timber science” as
conservation measure
“Under his direction, thousands of tests were
carried out on the strength and durability of
timbers, on air seasoning, on tie preservation,
and on every aspect of ‘timber physics’ and
‘material research.’ For example, tests proved
that the formerly despised chestnut oak was
perfectly interchangeable with the favored
white oak as a tie timber and that southern
pines were all of very similar quality and were
equal competitors with northern white pine as
a bridge timber.”
Michael Williams,
Americans and Their Forests [p. 351]
Burnett & Bethell Processes
• Burnett Process:
– Pressure treating
– Zinc chloride
• Bethell Process:
– Pressure treating
– Coal-tar creosote
– More effective
“Together, the transcontinental railroad
and the telegraph made modern
America possible. Things that could not
be imagined before the Civil War now
became common. A nationwide stock
market, for example. A continent-wide
economy… a continent-wide culture….”
Stephen Ambrose,
Nothing Like it in the World [p. 370]
Railroads and the National Parks
“But a choice made is made, it cannot be
changed. Things happened as they happened.
It is possible to imagine all kinds of different
routes across the continent, or a better way for
the government to help private industry, or
maybe have the government build it and own it.
But those things didn’t happen, and what did
take place is grand. So we admire those who
did it – even if they were far from perfect – for
what they were and what they accomplished
and how much each of us owes them.”
Stephen Ambrose,
Nothing Like It in the World [p. 382]