Transcontinental Railroad | Hell on Wheels | 3
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Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's May 1866, and you're seated at a corner table in the bustling dining room of the National Hotel in Washington, D.C. Chandeliers cast a warm light over the remnants of your meal.

You're a lobbyist for the Central Pacific Railroad, and you've just finished dinner with a Michigan congressman. You sip your wine and lean forward in your chair. Now, I think you know why I invited you here tonight, Congressman. Something's troubling my friends at the Central Pacific.

The congressman pushes his empty plate aside and takes a cigar out of his pocket, lighting it with the flame of a tapered candle. Oh, and what's that? Well, they've never been happy with the 1864 railroad bill. It prohibits them from laying tracks more than 150 miles beyond the California border. No, I've never heard something so ludicrous. They're upset that they can't lay tracks across Nevada? Seems to me they have bigger fish to fry, considering they've been stalled on the western side of the Sierras for months.

The worst of their labor is still to come, but they won't be stuck there forever. The Union Pacific is speeding across the Great Plains. It's not fair that they have the right to build as far as they'd like, but the Central Pacific doesn't. The congressman takes a deep puff of his cigar and shakes his head. Well, if you ask me, it's going to take your bosses a decade to blast their way out of the Sierras. By then, the Union Pacific will have crossed the California-Nevada border from the east. But hear me out, sir.

The Central Pacific isn't seeking any more money. What they want won't cost the government anything. All they want is equal opportunity, the right to compete fairly. I mean, isn't that the American way? Congressman narrows his eyes. Speak plainly. What is it you want? I'm simply asking you to amend the railroad bill, removing the limits on the Central Pacific's mileage. Let them build out as far as they're able.

The congressman leans back in his chair and draws in a deep puff from his cigar. Perhaps next year. There are too many other priorities on the agenda. It's an election year, you know, and the fate of a California railroad isn't exactly top of mind for my constituents in Michigan. Ah, but the partners at the Central Pacific have more than enough funds to make it worth your while. At this, the congressman's eyes light up. You can see wheels turning in his mind. Well then, now we have something to discuss.

Relief washes over you, and you raise your glass for a toast to the future of the Central Pacific. You clink glasses, sealing your agreement. And as you sip your wine, a warm feeling of satisfaction settles in your chest. You know you've played your cards well, because if there's only one thing you've learned from this job, it's that money talks.

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From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story. American History Tellers

In the spring of 1866, the Central Pacific Railroad hired a lobbyist to represent its interests in Congress. The company was building the Transcontinental Railroad eastward from California, but federal law had limited it to building no further than 150 miles into Nevada. Executives wanted the federal government to remove all limits on where they could lay tracks, allowing them to compete with the Union Pacific for land and government bonds.

But Central Pacific workers were stalled in California, facing the monumental task of blasting 15 tunnels through solid granite. Building a railroad across the Sierra Nevada mountains demanded ingenuity and perseverance, especially during one of the worst winters of the century. And it depended on thousands of Chinese laborers who would be pushed to their breaking point.

1,000 miles to the east, other workers on the Union Pacific faced harassment and violence from Plains Indians who were desperate to defend their ancestral homelands from the encroaching railroad. But mountains, snow, and Indian attacks mattered little to the men in charge of the railroads. They knew that every mile of track meant money in their pockets. And as their rivalry intensified, they would stop at nothing to capture victory. This is Episode 3, Hell on Wheels.

By the spring of 1866, Union Pacific track layers were making steady progress across the plains of Nebraska. But out in California, Central Pacific crews had spent more than six months stuck at mile 54 east of Sacramento, slowly chipping away at Sierra Nevada mountains. Some naysayers insisted that it would take a decade to tunnel through the granite range.

Sitting in his office in New York City, Central Pacific Vice President Collis Huntington read glowing reports of the Union Pacific's progress in the Great Plains, and he feared that if the Union Pacific kept up its momentum, before long, their crews would eventually build past the Central Pacific line, rendering his investments worthless. The 1864 Pacific Railway Act had granted the Union Pacific the right to build as far west as possible,

But the Central Pacific was limited to building just 150 miles east of the California-Nevada border. And even though the Central Pacific crews were nowhere near the state line, Huntington wanted to change the law so his crews could build as far east as possible. Mileage equaled dollars in the form of land, mineral rights, and government bonds, and Huntington wanted the right to compete for them.

So he enlisted the help of a charismatic ex-Congressman and former Union Army general named Richard Franchot. Franchot became the first paid lobbyist in the history of Congress. Huntington and the other members of the Big Four that controlled the Central Pacific paid him $20,000 a year, the same salary they paid themselves, and more than five times the salary Franchot had made as a congressman.

The Big Four also supplied Franchot with a large expense account so he could spread cash and favors throughout Congress. Before long, his efforts paid off. On July 3, 1866, President Andrew Johnson signed an amendment to the Railroad Bill, allowing the Central Pacific to construct its line east until it connected with the Union Pacific Line. But it made no mention of where that meeting point would be, so whichever company built faster could claim more miles of track.

Essentially, the federal government had sanctioned a competition between the two railroads. Soon, the Central Pacific sent surveyors to Nevada to plot a route through the desert and the race was officially on.

But it was a race that the Central Pacific could not win as long as it was still stalled in the Sierras. By the summer of 1866, construction chief Charles Crocker and his crew boss James Harvey Strobridge had hired 10,000 workers, 8,000 of them Chinese immigrants. They faced the daunting challenge of digging 15 tunnels through solid granite to make the route over the Sierras passable for trains. They needed to bore five tunnels on the west slope, one through the Donner Summit, and

and nine on the east slope. In August 1866, workers began tackling the largest tunnel, known as Summit Tunnel. The crews needed to blast through roughly one-third of a mile of solid rock. The workers used hand drills to bore two-inch holes into the granite, and then they packed these holes with black powder and lit a fuse to blast away tiny chunks of rock.

The process was excruciatingly slow. Despite working in shifts around the clock, crews only managed a few inches per day.

To speed up their work, engineer Samuel Montague decided to drill a large vertical shaft down the middle of the mountain so the crews could work on four faces at a time. Two teams would work on the western and eastern ends of the tunnel, and two more would work from the middle outward. The shaft would be 8 by 12 feet wide and more than 70 feet deep.

But the crew struggled to dig the rubble out by hand. Engineers found a solution in an old, abandoned locomotive called the Sacramento, one of the first to operate west of the Missouri River. Workers stripped the 12-ton locomotive of its non-essential parts, and a team of 10 oxen dragged it to the top of Donner Summit. There, its engine powered a hoist for pulling up blasted granite and lowering down timber to shore up the tunnel.

This new hoist helped the crews enlarge the shaft by a foot every day, but it would still take months before they would finally reach the bottom and begin blasting the tunnel from the inside out.

And by November 1866, heavy snows began to blanket the mountains. The winter that year was one of the worst of the century, bringing 44 separate storms to the Sierras. At the summit, the snowpack averaged 18 feet. But the Big Four refused to shut down work for fear of losing the race with their rival. They knew the Union Pacific was making a rapid advance across Nebraska.

And while they were measuring their progress in miles, the Central Pacific was still measuring their success in inches. So instead of closing down for the winter, Strobridge put hundreds of Chinese laborers to work shoveling snow tunnels ranging from 50 to 500 feet long to maintain access to the worksites. They dug windows, chimneys, and air shafts out of the snow walls for light and ventilation. Some of the tunnels were large enough for horses to travel through.

And for the rest of the winter, these Chinese workers lived and worked inside the snow labyrinths. They rarely saw the light of day. Working in the snow was dangerous as well as claustrophobic. The black powder charges sometimes triggered avalanches, which killed dozens at a time. An unknown number of men lost their lives. The company kept no records. Only after the snow melted in the spring would many of the bodies be discovered, still gripping picks and shovels in their frozen hands.

But despite working through the winter storms, the tunnelers' progress remained painfully slow. In January 1867, Crocker wrote to Huntington declaring, Strobridge and I have come to the conclusion that something must be done to hasten it. So they decided to turn to a substance they had read about in Scientific American magazine, liquid nitroglycerin.

It was the most powerful explosive ever made, eight times more destructive than black powder. It was also much cheaper. But there was a downside. It was extremely temperamental. The previous year, an accidental nitroglycerin explosion had leveled half a block in downtown San Francisco, killing 15 people.

But Crocker and Strobridge were desperate. They proceeded despite the risks. In February, they hired a Scottish chemist to mix the nitroglycerin on site. This new explosive allowed the workers to bore smaller holes in the rock with greater destructive yield. The debris left behind was also easier to clear. So using nitroglycerin, workers in the summit tunnel were able to blast away two to four feet a day in all four directions.

And while work continued in the tunnels in the spring of 1867, another 3,000 graders and track layers worked on the east side of the summit, where surveyors had traveled as far as the Great Salt Lake in Utah, where they crossed paths with surveyors from the Union Pacific.

But any eastward aspirations were still stuck in the Donner Pass, where Chinese workers were laboring through 12-foot snowdrifts. And now the company was beginning to lose men to the gold mines and other employers. One Central Pacific director complained, We have proved their value as laborers. Everyone is trying Chinese workers and now we can't get them.

So to keep their Chinese workers in the fold, construction chief Charles Crocker raised their monthly wages from $31 to $35. But for many, it still wasn't enough to reward them for performing the most grueling work of the entire railroad. Imagine it's June 25th, 1867, and you're grading the roadbed for the Central Pacific. You're high in the Sierras, blasting rock between Sisko and Strong's Canyon, under the watchful eye of your boss, James Strobridge.

Sweat drips down your neck as you secretly check your watch, a small luxury you bought with your meager wages. You nod to the men on either side of you, and they nod back with their jaws set. You then lay down your pickaxe. One by one, the other men lay down their tools, too. Without another word, you begin walking back toward camp. Hey, where the hell do you think you're going?

Strobridge's booming voice stops you in your tracks. You turn around to see his face reddening with anger. "Get back on the line, all of you. There's still an hour left." He lumbers toward you and your heart pounds in your chest. "Not today. We're going on strike." "What the hell are you talking about?" "We want $40 a month. The same as the white workers."

Strobridge's face twists in disbelief. He lifts up his eye patch to wipe the sweat off his brow with a handkerchief. You ungrateful dimwits. Crocker already raised your wages to $35 last month. You should be thanking him. It's not enough. We're doing the hardest work on the line. We deserve more money. And 11 hours is just too much. You want 10 hours. Eight for the tunnelers. Is that all? His towering frame looms over you.

You straighten up and meet his gaze. No, there's more. When the men try to find new jobs, they get harassed and punished. It's not fair. His expression darkens. Fair? You should consider yourself lucky. No one would even hire you until Crocker and I agreed to let you work for the railroad. Enough of this. Get back to work. You shake your head. Not until we get what we want. Take it up with Crocker. Things can't go on this way.

Without waiting for his reply, you turn around and stride back toward camp, the others following in your wake. But your steps feel heavier than usual. You know you face a dangerous foe in Strobridge and his rich bosses. You just hope that together, you can make things better for your fellow workers. On June 25, 1867, more than 2,000 Chinese workers went on strike, demanding $40 a month and shorter shifts.

Construction chief Charles Crocker was furious and refused to negotiate. Still, he marveled at the peaceful nature of the strike. The workers simply stayed in their camps. But company leaders had the advantage of controlling their supplies, so Crocker responded by simply cutting off provisions. After a week without sufficient food, most of the workers gave up and returned to work at $35 a month.

But although the workers failed to achieve their demands, their collective action challenged the common stereotype that Chinese immigrants were passive and submissive. They also taught company leaders not to take their labor for granted. One executive complained, "...the truth is, they are getting smart." That same summer, the Central Pacific began sending agents to China to recruit even more workers.

And despite the eight-day strike, the Big Four had high hopes for the future now that nitroglycerin was speeding progress on the Donner Pass. In early August 1867, workers in the western shaft of the summit tunnel set off a blast, cleared away the debris, and felt a sudden breeze of cool mountain air. At last, they had broken through the western side of the summit tunnel. By the end of the month, other teams had broken through the eastern side. At long last, they had pierced the Sierra Nevada.

It was an astonishing achievement and brought a collective sense of relief to the railroad's investors, leaders, and workers. Now the Central Pacific could move forward in their race with the Union Pacific. But they had to move quickly if they hoped to outpace their rival and turn years of backbreaking labor into profit.

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In 1867, a bitter power struggle rocked the Union Pacific boardroom. On one side was Thomas Durant, the smooth-talking speculator who ran the organization. On the other side were Congressman Oaks Ames and his brother Oliver, who had spent the last two years buying up more and more stock of the Union Pacific and Credit Mobilier, the sham construction company Durant founded to extract personal profits from building the railroad.

At the end of 1866, the board defied Durant and elected Oliver Ames as the company's new president, a position Durant wanted for himself. Durant retaliated by filing a legal injunction to halt construction. And by March 1867, the Ames brothers had marshaled enough support to oust Durant from the board of Credit Mobilier. He hung on to his role at the Union Pacific, but for the rest of the year, he paralyzed the organization with lawsuits.

Oliver Ames wrote to chief engineer Grenville Dodge, complaining, Durant is now in open hostility to the railroad. But while the Ames brothers had removed Durant from his position of power at Credit Mobilier, their attempts to buy out his shares in the company had failed. Durant would continue to profit from its booming stock. Meanwhile, Oaks Ames found himself besieged by his colleagues in Congress, who also wanted a piece of the action.

He sold credit mobilier stock far below market value to several legislators, including future President James Garfield and Speaker of the House and future Vice President Skyler Colfax.

But the chaos in the boardroom was nothing compared to conditions at the end of the Union Pacific tracks. The winter weather that had buffeted the Central Pacific crews on the Donner Pass also made life miserable for the Union Pacific crews hunkered down in North Platte, Nebraska. Temperatures there dropped to 40 degrees below zero. The track-laying bosses Jack and Dan Caseman wanted to begin work again in February, but snow and freezing temperatures delayed them well into March.

Then, early April brought severe rains. Flooding washed away miles of track, forcing crews to redo their work. Despite the weather, though, Chief Engineer Grendel Dodge set the ambitious goal of laying nearly 300 miles of track in 1867. He planned to extend the line from North Platte at 3,000 feet above sea level to the mountains of southeastern Wyoming at roughly 5,000 feet above sea level.

He had nearly 10,000 workers to carry out his orders, and by April 20, 1867, the Casement brothers were finally at work laying new track in western Nebraska. As far as 200 miles to the west in Wyoming, thousands of graders were preparing the roadbed. But as the Union Pacific pushed west, workers faced growing violence from Plains Indians, who saw the advancing railroad as a threat to their ancestral homelands.

Their lives centered around the millions of wild buffalo that roamed the Great Plains. Plains Indians used every part of the buffalo for food, clothing, housing, and tools. But the railroad threatened the buffalo herds. Aside from facilitating white settlement, the railroad split the herds into two parts because buffalo would not cross the tracks.

And as railroads advanced across the West, some advertised hunting-by-rail trips, bringing hundreds of white visitors to massacre the wild herds for entertainment, further diminishing the Indians' main food supply.

By 1867, the Pawnee of eastern Nebraska had mostly surrendered, even joining U.S. soldiers to help protect western settlers. But in western Nebraska and Wyoming, bands of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors were determined to do whatever they could to protect their lands and way of life.

On May 1, 1867, Cheyenne warriors killed four men carrying mail along the Union Pacific Line. Soon after, a war party pulled up railroad survey stakes and stole supplies. The attacks increased in late May when Sioux and Cheyenne warriors struck the railroad at various points, derailing a train near the end of the tracks and killing a dozen Union Pacific men.

Chief Engineer Dodge was livid. He declared, We've got to clean the damn Indians out or give up building the Union Pacific Railroad. The government may take its choice. Dodge's former commander, General William Tecumseh Sherman, provided what support he could, but slack enlistment had limited the Army's reach. So Dodge ordered every Union Pacific worker to arm themselves.

But Dodge also had to worry about violence and criminality within his own ranks. As the tracks moved west, makeshift towns called Hells on Wheels followed the crews. Saloons, gambling houses, and brothels catered to the railroad crew, transient workers, and criminals. They were sometimes put up and taken down in a single day, and they became notorious for violence and lawlessness.

By June 1867, the latest hell on wheels was in Julesburg, near the Nebraska-Colorado border. Overnight, this tiny settlement had grown from 40 to 4,000 people. One engineer described how in Julesburg, vice and crime stalk unblushingly in the midday sun.

But when gamblers in Julesburg seized land belonging to the Union Pacific, Chief Engineer Dodge ordered crew boss Jack Casement to clean up the town. Casement marched in with 200 men and opened fire. When Dodge appeared in town, Casement showed him a hill of fresh graves, declaring, They all died but brought peace. Julesburg has been quiet since.

The next month, on July 4th, Chief Engineer Dodge staked out a new town in Wyoming, claiming 320 acres for the Union Pacific. He named it Cheyenne, in honor of the dominant tribe in the region. It lay at the meeting point of Wyoming's plains and mountains, roughly halfway between Omaha and Salt Lake City, and just 90 miles north of Denver. He decided it would be the ideal place to house the Union Pacific's main shops and warehouses.

But the day after Dodge plotted the town, Indians attacked a local grading crew and killed three men. Dodge had the men buried, and Cheyenne had its first cemetery. But the attack did little to deter settlers and speculators. By summer's end, Cheyenne's population would number in the thousands.

Still, Indian attacks continued to plague Union Pacific crews. On August 7, 1867, a Cheyenne chief named Pawnee Killer led 40 warriors to the train tracks in Plum Creek, Nebraska. They pulled up the iron spikes and bent the rails. Soon after, a westbound freight train derailed and two crewmen were killed. Another freight train came along and crashed into the first wreck.

The waiting Cheyenne set fire to the cars, killed and scalped additional crewmen, and threw their bodies into the flames. A Union Pacific surveyor expressed the feelings of many railroad workers when he wrote, "'I have no sympathy with the Red Devils. May the greedy crow and dark-winged raven hover over their silent corpses. May the coyote feast upon their stiff and festering carcasses. Education and civilization will be satisfied when they cease to be.'"

Anger toward Indian war parties extended from Nebraska to Washington, D.C. And in September 1867, a U.S. government peace commission traveled to North Platte in the hopes of stopping the attacks. They feared that if they failed, construction on the railroad would grind to a halt. Imagine it's September 19th, 1867 in North Platte, Nebraska. You're a Cheyenne chief and you're in the crowded dining room of the Union Pacific train stations.

You and several Sioux and Cheyenne leaders sit at a long wooden table cluttered with tin plates and empty cups, facing a group of white men wearing starched shirts and uniforms with gleaming brass buttons. You've just finished exchanging prisoners, and now it's your turn to speak in the continuing negotiations. You rise slowly, smoothing down your buffalo hide shirt. All eyes turn to you. You say you want peace. My people want the freedom to hunt.

Your iron road is driving away our game. We want these roads stopped where they are. The white men shift in their seats. A younger man with thin, sharp features clears his throat. My name is Reverend Nathaniel G. Taylor, and I am Commissioner of Indian Affairs. This government is prepared to offer a solution for you and your people. We will set up two large reservations where the Sioux and Cheyenne can settle. Reservations? You mean you want to confine us, like your cattle?

Taylor calmly shakes his head. Not at all. You will be fed, clothed, and educated in Christian principles. You will learn to be civilized and grow your own food. You feel a hot surge of anger. I am no farmer. I have eaten wild meat my whole life, as did my father and grandfather before him. I will not give up the customs of my ancestors.

Taylor exchanges a condescending smirk with the general sitting beside him, then returns his gaze to you. You will if you want to survive. The railroad is here to stay whether you like it or not. The railroad is the root of all these troubles. If your people stopped building, then there would be peace. Taylor looks at you with an expression bordering on pity. The railroad is not going to surrender to a few bands of roving Indians. You have a choice, my friend. Adapt or perish. Who's next?

Taylor sweeps his gaze across the table, gesturing for the next speaker to begin. You reluctantly sit down, frustration burning within you. It's clear that these men won't stop and they won't compromise. They're blind to the suffering they bring.

At a peace conference in North Platte in September 1867, Sioux and Cheyenne leaders complained that the railroads were driving off their game. General Sherman made a defiant speech, declaring, We will build iron roads, and you cannot stop the locomotive any more than you can stop the sun or the moon. Cheyenne Chief Pawnee Killer stormed out of the conference in anger.

In the end, the two sides failed to reach any solution. Indian warriors would continue harassing the Union Pacific crews, though no attacks reached the level of destruction of the Plum Creek derailment. And by mid-November 1867, the Union Pacific tracks reached Cheyenne. In less than eight months, crews had laid more than 250 miles of track, just shy of Dodge's goal of 300 for the year.

Grading crews were preparing the ground in Wyoming, and surveyors were mapping a route through Utah. And with the news of all this progress, credit mobilier stock soared. At the end of 1867, dividends came in at 200%, and Oaks Ames became one of the most popular men in Congress.

But Central Pacific executives had their own reasons to celebrate. On November 30, 1867, the Central Pacific sent a train from Sacramento to the eastern side of the Sierras for the very first time. It was an extraordinary accomplishment, something few thought would ever be possible. And now, as they entered a more forgiving landscape, the race between the railroads could begin in earnest, and their competition started to fill the front pages of the nation's newspapers.

To most Americans, it seemed the Union Pacific was winning the race. Five years after their rival, the Central Pacific, first broke ground in Sacramento, its crews had laid just over 100 miles of track. The Union Pacific had laid five times as much. And because the Central Pacific was stuck in place for so long, the company was perpetually out of money, forced to borrow against future government bonds.

But now that they had powered through the Sierras, the Big Four were confident about the future. Construction Chief Charles Crocker said, If the Union Company lay more track in the year 68 than we do, I will pay the damage. We will beat the Union Pacific to Salt Lake. Stick a pin there.

Both railroads were ready to move heaven and earth to win the race to Salt Lake City and the money that came with it. And as the competition ramped up, nothing would be left on the table. These two companies were prepared to cut corners, push their crews harder than ever, and commit brazen fraud in their race to the finish. ♪

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The stakes were high as the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific entered the 1868 work season. The two companies' executives knew they were playing a zero-sum game. Every dollar one company gained was one dollar the other lost. At the Central Pacific, the Big Four were buoyed by the knowledge that their crews were entering the flat terrain of the Nevada desert, even as they had to dedicate thousands of workers to the task of shoveling snow off the tracks in California.

And after years spent chipping away at the Sierras, they were desperate to make up for lost time. The crews had prided themselves on their workmanship in the mountains. But in January 1868, Central Pacific Treasurer Mark Hopkins wired the company president Leland Stanford, explaining that from now on, they would trade quality for speed and build the cheapest possible railroad. He declared, we will build as fast as possible to be acceptable to the commissioners.

Executives at the Union Pacific also went into 1868 with high hopes. The federal government granted far more bonds for tracks laid over mountainous terrain. And now that their crews had entered the Wyoming Mountains, the railroad would receive $48,000 in government bonds per mile for the next 150 miles. This was four times the amount they collected for laying tracks on the flat plains between Omaha and Cheyenne.

So Union Pacific directors told Chief Engineer Grenville Dodge to build as much road as possible in 1868. One engineer summed up the task ahead, declaring, Push is the word for this season.

And the season began in April 1868, when the ground finally thawed in Wyoming, and Union Pacific workers began laying track on a windy plain in the Rocky Mountains known as Sherman Summit. At more than 8,200 feet above sea level, it was the highest point of any railroad anywhere more than 1,000 feet higher than the Summit Tunnel in the Sierras. But because the ascent was far more gradual, the track posed none of the challenges faced by the Chinese crews in California.

Thomas Durant, who continued to cling on to his position at the Union Pacific, sent off a telegram to Stanford, boasting about the company's achievements in ascending these heights. Stanford replied with a snide remark, May your descent be easy and rapid.

But four miles past Sherman Summit, Union Pacific crews tackled their first major construction project. They needed to build a bridge over a wide canyon at Dale Creek, 126 feet above the streambed and 700 feet long. It needed to be strong enough to carry trains and withstand powerful mountain winds, and it was going to be built entirely out of wood.

Timber for the bridge was felled in Michigan and cut in a Chicago workshop, then carried by train to the front of the tracks. On April 14, 1868, the bridge was halfway complete when it nearly crumbled under the pressure of a massive gale. Crews grabbed every rope and chain they could find to save it from total collapse.

But nine days later, the Dale Creek Bridge was complete, and Durant himself traveled to Wyoming to nail in the final spike. From a distance, the bridge looked like it had been constructed out of toothpicks. Government inspectors told Durant that in a few years, he would need to replace it with a steel bridge. But Durant was unfazed. He had no intention of sticking around that long.

Meanwhile, 1,000 miles to the west, the Central Pacific crews had finally picked up their pace after besting the Sierras. At the same time the Dale Creek Bridge was being built, the Central Pacific tracks reached the California-Nevada border, but the Big Four feared that they were still too far behind their rivals and it was going to cost them.

At stake were the rich coal deposits of Utah's Weber Canyon near the town of Ogden, as well as control of traffic near Salt Lake City, the only major commercial area between the Missouri River and Sacramento. If the Central Pacific failed to take possession of Utah, their tracks would end in the barren wasteland of the Nevada desert. But Utah was also the target of Union Pacific chief engineer Grenville Dodge.

He was determined to lay tracks within 100 miles of Ogden before the end of 1868. From there, he would be able to send grading crews all the way to Humboldt Wells in eastern Nevada. The plans of both companies hinge on a clause in the law allowing them to grade 300 miles ahead of continuous track already laid. Once government inspectors accepted the grade, the railroads were allowed to collect a portion of the government bonds they were owed even before they had laid any track.

So millions of dollars were on the line, and Central Pacific Vice President Collis Huntington planned to use this law to his advantage and make his most audacious move yet. Imagine it's April 1868 in New York City. You're a lobbyist for the Central Pacific, and you're meeting with your client Collis Huntington late at night in his cramped office. You've never seen him so on edge. His hand trembles as he pours you a tumbler of whiskey, and then he takes a deep sip of his own drink.

Now, my spies at the Union Pacific have informed me that they plan to lay 350 miles of rail this season, no matter the cost. I can't let them shut us out of Utah. Well, what do you plan to do? Huntington clears some papers off his desk to reveal a map of the southwest. He takes a pen out of his pocket and then draws a horizontal line across the map, running from eastern Nevada, across the north side of the Great Salt Lake, through Ogden, and all the way to the Wasatch Range.

He then slides the map towards you. I need your help with Orville Browning. I mean, why do you think I hired the former law partner, the Interior Secretary, as my lobbyist? I want you to secure his approval so that we can grade the roadbed along this line. It's a 300-mile distance. You stare down at the map in confusion. I don't understand. For the Central Pacific to grade that far east into Utah, the tracks would need to be in eastern Nevada by now, all the way in Humboldt Wells.

"'Isn't the end of the line still hundreds of miles west?' Huntington then winks, takes another sip of whiskey. "'It is indeed, but Browning doesn't need to know that. Reality is one thing and maps are another. What about the gap in the line near Donner Lake in California? Doesn't the law say the tracks need to be continuous? Gaps can be closed, my friend. All it takes is the stroke of a pen.'

There's a glint of mischief in his eyes, and you don't know if you like it. Browning is no student of geography, but, Collis, this is galling, even for you. Huntington shrugs and leans back in his leather wingback chair. It's no more galling than what the Union Pacific is doing, believe me. Spreading money around Congress like that? Just take the request to the Secretary, please. There's a train leaving for Washington at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning.

You sigh and then down the rest of your whiskey. You know you're helping Huntington break federal law. But you also know that he won't take no for an answer. In April 1868, Collis Huntington sent a fraudulent map to Interior Secretary William Browning, indicating that the Central Pacific tracks were as far as Humboldt Wells in eastern Nevada. He then asked for permission to grade 300 miles to the east past Ogden, Utah.

But in truth, the track was hundreds of miles west of Humboldt Wells, and there were still gaps in the line. It was all lies, but Huntington had the help of a lobbyist who was close to Browning. So in mid-May 1868, Browning approved the Central Pacific Line as far east as Monument Point, Utah, at the northern tip of the Great Salt Lake. He withheld judgment on the remaining 60 miles.

Union Pacific President Oliver Ames was stunned when Secretary Browning told him the news. But Central Pacific's Huntington was unapologetic, writing, "...we should be bold and take and hold possession of the line as far as we can." Now the Central Pacific could move full steam ahead into Utah. And soon the two railroads would be grading past each other. Union Pacific surveyors were already well into Utah, and their graders were not far behind.

So after years of working half a continent apart, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific would soon converge. Two armies of workers were on the march, and the battle for Utah was about to begin. From Wondery, this is Episode 3 of our four-part series, Transcontinental Railroad from American History Tellers.

On the next episode, the two railroads struggle to negotiate a meeting point. Chinese workers cross Nevada's notorious 40-mile desert. And severe weather and rapid construction spark deadly accidents on the tracks.

If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship. Audio editing by Christian Paraga. Sound design by Molly Bach. Music by Lindsey Graham. Voice acting by Stephen Fu and Joey Surlis. This episode is written by Ellie Stanton. Edited by Dorian Marina. Produced by Alita Rosansky. Managing producers are Desi Blaylock and Matt Gant. Senior managing producer, Ryan Lorne.

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