Transcontinental Railroad | The Golden Spike | 4
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Imagine it's January 1869 in Washington, D.C., and you're walking through a corridor in the Willard Hotel. You're the president of the Union Pacific Railroad, and you've come here today with your chief engineer, Grenville Dodge. You glance at him as you approach the door of a hotel suite. Tightness around his eyes mirrors your own wariness as you raise your hand to knock. The door swings open, and before you stands Collis Huntington, the vice president of your rival company, the Central Pacific Railroad.

Huntington's black hair is as unruly as ever, and his penetrating eyes dart between you and Dodge. He steps aside to let you both in. You glance at the maps and letters littered across the table. Huntington doesn't offer you a seat, and you don't bother waiting for one. "'I'll get straight to the point, Collis. It's time we put an end to this wasteful business of having our men grade past each other in Utah. The workers are all exhausted, and I know I am too.'

Huntington raises an eyebrow. "'And?' "'And I say we should put our heads together and fix a meeting point.' "'Oh, what do you have in mind?' "'We'll take the distance remaining between the two lines and meet in the middle. That'll put the rendezvous just west of the Promontory Mountains.' Huntington huffs with a look of disbelief. "'You really think I'm going to give you the Promontories?' "'Well, yes. It's the fairest option. This way you can focus your cruise in Nevada and western Utah.'

Huntington takes a step forward, his expression darkening. "'Well, I'll see you damned first.' "'What's your alternative, then?' "'The mouth of the Weber Canyon, east of the Great Salt Lake.'

You glance at Dodge, and he shrugs and shakes his head. You turn back to Huntington. You're deluding yourself. Your tracks are nowhere near Weber. And what about the months of grading our crews have completed west of there? You think after all that work, all that money, I'm going to let you walk off with a prime stretch of land? I don't care how much ground you've covered. We meet at Weber Canyon, or we don't meet at all. Then I guess we don't meet at all. You turn on your heels and storm out the door. Dodge follows close behind.

Anger churns in your chest as you march down the hall. You're in the final stretch of completing the Transcontinental Railroad, a project that has taken years, claimed hundreds of lives, and could transform the nation. But none of that matters if you can't agree on a meeting point. You're starting to think it all may be for naught unless you can convince your rivals to reach a compromise.

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From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story. In January 1869, Union Pacific President Oliver Ames and Chief Engineer Grenville Dodge met with Central Pacific Vice President Collis Huntington in Washington, D.C.,

For years, the railroads had been advancing toward each other without a defined location for their tracks to meet. Now, their grading crews were working within sight of each other in Utah. But when the executives tried to finally select a meeting point, the discussion quickly descended into a shouting match.

Huntington and Ames knew that vast sums of money hung in the balance. The more miles they racked up, the more government bonds and land grants they would collect. And both wanted to control the valuable coal mines in Utah's Weber Canyon and traffic in and out of Salt Lake City.

In the final year of their race across the continent, both companies pushed their workers harder than ever before. But their frenzied advance toward a disputed finish line spawned accidents and shoddy work and resulted in soaring costs. These companies had spearheaded one of America's greatest engineering marvels, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to hide the fact that the tracks destined to unite the nation were built on a foundation of corruption and fraud.

This is Episode 4, The Golden Spike. In the spring of 1868, the Central Pacific began laying track eastward in Nevada, while the Union Pacific was advancing westward across Wyoming. But leaders at both companies were already focused on Utah and their race to build as many miles of track in that state as possible, aware that mileage amounted to money in the form of land, mineral rights, and government bonds.

Thomas Durant and his fellow directors at the Union Pacific were determined to claim Utah for themselves. But they knew that if they were going to beat their rivals, they would need as many laborers as possible to grade the roadbed. And it just so happened that Utah was full of able-bodied men in need of work.

Salt Lake City was founded in the late 1840s by Mormon pioneers fleeing persecution. Their leader, Brigham Young, was a longtime supporter of the Transcontinental Railroad. Back in 1863, he was one of a handful of initial investors in the Union Pacific when it first started selling shares.

So in May 1868, Durant wired Young and offered the Mormons a contract to grade roughly 50 miles in Echo Canyon and Weaver Canyon on the eastern side of the Great Salt Lake. Durant told Young that he would pay any price he named, and the offer came at an ideal time. A plague of grasshoppers had recently destroyed crops in several communities, leaving Utah with a surplus of young men in need of work. Young and Durant soon negotiated a deal.

At the start of June 1868, 5,000 Mormon laborers began work. They graded the roadbed, cut timber, and built bridges. And they began blasting four tunnels in the mountains of eastern Utah. The tunnels were a first for the Union Pacific after three years and hundreds of miles of construction. The Mormon workers used nitroglycerin, the same temperamental explosive the Central Pacific's Chinese laborers used in California, and experienced the same efficient results.

Chief Engineer Grenville Dodge was thrilled with the new hires. The Mormon workers were quiet and hardworking. They didn't drink or gamble, and they ended each day with communal prayers and songs.

But news of their hiring rattled the big four directors at the Central Pacific. The railroad's president, Leland Stanford, set off for Salt Lake City at once, desperate to make his own deal with Brigham Young. Although the Central Pacific tracks were still 500 miles to the west, Stanford was intent on starting grading work in Utah as soon as possible, and he wanted the best laborers he could get.

And while Stanford was busy negotiating an agreement with Young, he wired marching orders to Treasurer Mark Hopkins, declaring, Have Charlie Crocker double his energy and do what is necessary to secure what labor is required to push the road to its utmost. Anything less than the most that can be done will very likely end in defeat.

But despite Stanford's concern, he also had a reason to celebrate. On June 18th, the Central Pacific ran its first passenger train from Sacramento, California to Reno, Nevada, a distance of 154 miles. A San Francisco reporter on board applauded the accomplishment, writing, "...the Chinese workers have broken down the Great Barrier at last and opened over it the greatest highway yet created for the march of civilization."

But keeping the line open for continuous passenger service and the revenue it promised required the railroad to build miles of wooden snowsheds to shelter the track from heavy snowfall common in the Sierras. Construction began that summer with six trains and roughly 2,500 men dedicated solely to snowshed construction.

The sheds protected the trains, but there was also a downside. They were major fire hazards, as sparks emitting from the locomotives sometimes set the wooden structures alight. And there were other dangers awaiting the crews working further east in Nevada. In July, the Central Pacific pushed into Nevada's notorious Forty Mile Desert, a barren expanse long dreaded by pioneers traveling to California by wagon.

Mark Twain described the bleak landscape, writing, From one extremity of this desert to the other, the road was white with the bones of oxen and horses. We could have walked the forty miles and set our feet on a bone at every step. The desert was one prodigious graveyard.

In this wasteland, crews had to labor through scorching heat. There was no water, no trees, and nothing that could be used for construction. The Central Pacific was forced to transport thousands of gallons of water to the crews and their livestock every day.

And speed was a constant challenge. Everything from locomotives to rails had to be built in the east, sailed around the tip of South America to San Francisco, sent up the Sacramento River, then transported to the end of the Central Pacific Line. Frequent delays impeded any progress.

But the Big Four had no intention of slowing down. On July 1, 1868, Collis Huntington told Construction Chief Charles Crocker that he had sent 60,000 tons of iron rails from New York on fast ships, declaring, So work on as though heaven were before you and hell behind you.

So despite the harsh conditions, Central Pacific crews began to pick up speed through the flat terrain of Nevada. Now that the grading work was easier than in the mountains, crew boss James Strobridge doubled the number of men laying track and spiking ties. In July and August 1868, his workers averaged one and a half miles of track a day.

Around that same time, Stanford reached a deal with Brigham Young. Young agreed to supply workers to grade 100 miles of road from Humboldt Wells, Nevada to Monument Point in Utah's Promontory Mountains, just north of the Great Salt Lake. The new contract was welcome news for Young and his Mormon workers because by late summer, it had become clear that Thomas Durant was failing to live up to his promises. Imagine it's September 1868 in Echo Canyon, Utah.

The heat of the afternoon sun beats down on you as you make your way through the Union Pacific worksite. You're the leader of the Mormon people here in Utah, and hundreds of your men are scattered across this rugged landscape preparing the roadbed for the coming railroad. As you move through a cloud of swirling dust, you spot engineer Samuel Reed speaking with a colleague. You call out, Mr. Reed!

Reed catches sight of you and frowns. He steals a nervous glance at his colleague, then forces a smile as he turns to face you. Mr. Young, I'm afraid I'm busy at the moment. Another time? You're not leaving until you speak with me.

Reed's colleague walks off, leaving him alone. He sighs, his shoulders slumping in resignation. All right, what is it? The Union Pacific is behind on payments. My men are getting anxious. Thomas Durant isn't responding to my telegrams, and you're the only one who can give me answers. Well, I don't know what to say. I don't know anything about it. I don't believe you. You're Durant's right-hand man, aren't you? If I were a betting man, and I'm not, I'd wager that you know exactly what's going on.

My men have only been paid one-third of what they're owed for the last three months of work. These men have families to feed. They're struggling. Reed scratches his beard uncomfortably. His eyes dart across the worksite, searching for an escape. Look, I'm sorry. I'm sure Durant will pay you soon. You know how hard it is to run a railroad? He's a busy man. Soon isn't good enough. I've been paying the men out of my own pocket to keep them going, but I can't keep this up forever. Mr. Reed, need a look at this.

Interrupting your conversation, someone calls Reed's name from across the site. He seizes the opportunity to escape, giving you a curt nod before rushing off. Hey, I'm sorry, I have to go. You stomp your foot in frustration. You fear you've made a grave mistake getting into business with these men. The railroad was supposed to bring prosperity to Salt Lake, but it's beginning to feel like you've led your community astray by putting their fate into the hands of liars and cheats.

After three months of work for the Union Pacific, many of the Mormon workers in Utah still had not been paid. Brigham Young sent a flurry of telegrams to Thomas Durant to no avail, and by the fall of 1868, some of the men began walking off the job. But most continued working. A Wyoming reporter explained their obedience, concluding, "'Brother Brigham holds the whip as well as the reins, and whither he would drive, they go.'"

But 500 miles west in Nevada, Central Pacific crews were in better shape. They were laying track at an average of four miles a day. One reporter set his watch and marveled as he watched the workers lay a half mile of track in just 28 minutes. The crew ultimately laid six miles that day. Another journalist declared, This is railroading on a scale surpassing anything ever before conceived.

But Union Pacific crew boss Jack Caseman heard about the six-mile day at the Central Pacific and pushed his workers to go even faster. On October 26, his men laid eight miles in a single day. And this unprecedented feat earned the workers triple pay. By early November, the Union Pacific tracks reached the Wyoming-Utah border, 890 miles west of where they began in Omaha, Nebraska.

Now the Union Pacific track layers could begin laying track along the grade the Mormon workers had prepared in eastern Utah. But the Big Four had no intention of giving up Utah to their rivals. They wanted to own the tracks in the town of Ogden, 40 miles north of Salt Lake City. From there, they could control traffic in and out of Salt Lake City, as well as coal from the nearby mountains.

So that fall, they convinced the U.S. Interior Secretary to allow them to grade past the Union Pacific's Utah roadbed. Company President Stanford made another agreement with Brigham Young and contracted local Mormons to do the work of grading 100 miles eastward from Monument Point to Ogden. In light of his frustrations with Thomas Durant and the Union Pacific, Young persuaded Stanford to make a cash-down payment in advance of the work.

So now, graders from the two railroads soon found themselves working within a stone's throw of each other along a long line from the Nevada border to Ogden. They labored all day and all night, continuing by the light of sagebrush bonfires. A reporter observed, "...we understand that the lines of the two companies are being run nearly parallel, and everything now seems to indicate that there will be two grades, if not two roads."

But while the two companies were leveling two separate lines, only one company would be paid for its work. But a meeting point had not yet been decided, and in the meantime, leaders at both companies resolved to build as much track as possible.

On December 10th, the Central Pacific's Collis Huntington wrote that he prayed for one good storm to delay the Union Pacific's track layers. But his rivals were just as determined. Jack Casement reported that he was straining every nerve to get into Salt Lake Valley before the heavy snows fall. But it was not snow that slowed them down. Freezing temperatures ground work to a halt.

A Salt Lake City reporter declared, "...notwithstanding the Herculean efforts made by both companies, work may have to be suspended on a large portion yet to be done. The elements are obstacles which even railroad enterprise and energy sometimes cannot overcome." By mid-December, the exhausted crews of both railroads laid down their tools for the winter. The grueling 1868 work season had come to an end.

But the job was not yet done, and in the new year, the railroads would enter the final stretch of their long, frantic race to the finish.

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Just into the new year of 1869, the Union Pacific crews restarted their work. But the company was running out of money. Thomas Durant's single-minded focus on speed had driven up costs. It was impossible for the Union Pacific to sell enough stocks or collect enough government bonds to pay its bills. And these expenses continued to accrue so that by the start of 1869, the company was $10 million in debt.

But while the Union Pacific sank deeper into the red, the railroad's construction arm, Credit Mobilier, was doing better than ever. In 1868 alone, Credit Mobilier paid out nearly $13 million in cash dividends to Durant, Congressman Oaks Ames, and its other members.

But while these wealthy investors siphoned money from the road's construction, the Mormon workers in Utah were still working without pay. By January 1869, Durant owed them $750,000 in back wages. But he continued dodging Brigham Young's telegrams. A Union Pacific official told Young, It's a good thing for us that your people did the work, for no others would have waited so long without disturbance.

But at last, the massive corruption underlying the railroad came under scrutiny. In January, Charles Francis Adams Jr., the great-grandson of former President John Adams, broke the story in their respected North American Review. In an article headlined, The Pacific Railroad Ring, Adams targeted Credit Mobilier's shadowy inner workings, writing,

The members of it are in Congress. They are trustees for the bondholders. They are directors. They are stockholders. They are contractors. In Washington, they vote the subsidies. In New York, they receive them. Upon the plains, they expend them. And in the credit mobilier, they divide them.

This article planted the seeds of what would eventually grow into a major scandal. The Central Pacific was no less corrupt. Their construction contractor Charles Crocker and Company was similar to Credit Mobilier. But while Credit Mobilier had 91 members, all the stock in Crocker's company was secretly held by the Big Four alone, and Collis Huntington often bribed government officials to keep scrutiny away.

But the fact that the two railroads were building past each other was too obvious to many, underscoring the waste and greed at the core of the entire project. So to avoid further scrutiny, company leaders decided it was time to finally settle a meeting point. In late January 1869, Grenville Dodge and Oliver Ames visited Collis Huntington in his hotel room in Washington, D.C.,

Ames proposed the two railroads split the difference, taking the distance between their ends of track and meeting halfway. This suited the Union Pacific, because it would put the meeting point west of the promontories. But this suggestion infuriated Huntington. He shouted, I'll see you damned first, and then countered by naming Utah's Weaver Canyon a point further east. Ames stormed out of the room in anger and disbelief.

But there was good reason Huntington wanted to claim as many miles in Utah as he could. He was struggling to sell enough of Central Pacific stock and collect enough government bonds to pay the bills. And supply chain bottlenecks were preventing his workers from securing the materials they needed to finish the job. The Central Pacific was awaiting the arrival of 35 ships bound for San Francisco carrying iron rails, spikes, and 18 new locomotives.

In Truckee, California, sawmills worked around the clock, preparing one million ties. At the same time, warehouses in Omaha were filled with Union Pacific ties awaiting shipment to the end of the line. One order alone required 600 flat cars to travel 400 miles. These delays spurred the companies to cut corners. When the Central Pacific ran out of iron spikes, it resorted to using half the number it needed to secure the rails to the ties.

Winter weather also slowed progress. In late January, frigid temperatures in eastern Nevada and western Utah threatened to bring work to a standstill. Imagine it's an early mid-January morning in 1869 in Humboldt Wells, Nevada, and you're a grading foreman for the Central Pacific.

Dull gray clouds hang low in the sky, and your breath turns to fog as you walk across the frigid worksite. For the past week, temperatures have dropped as low as 18 degrees below zero. Your crew is trying to break up the frozen ground to prepare a way for the tracks, but the work is proving impossible.

Your boss, James Strobridge, emerges from his tent, a thick scarf bundled around his neck and a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. He nods at you, his single good eye as sharp as ever. "'How are the men holding up?' "'Well, they're not, and I say we pack it in, at least until this cold spell passes.' Strobridge sips his coffee and narrows his gaze. "'I thought the men of Central Pacific were made of tougher stuff than that.'

You swallow a rising frustration. It's not a question of toughness. The ground is frozen nearly two feet deep. Picks and shovels don't do a thing. It's no use. Work can't stop just because of a little cold. The Union Pacific is beating us, and every day of work we lose puts us further behind. Well, I've pushed them as hard as I can. The men are at their breaking point. I can feel it. Shovels and picks are no match for ground as hard as granite.

Suddenly, Strobridge's eyebrows raise in a look of sudden inspiration. "Well then we'll use black powder to break up the ground." "Black powder? Out here?" "Yeah, if it's hard as granite, then we'll blast it just like we did to tunnel through the Sierras."

You frown, your stomach churning at the memory of lost limbs and near misses. Strobridge himself lost his eye in a black powder accident. I don't know. Powder's going to cause more trouble than it'll solve. And if we keep up with this and build tracks over frozen earth, what happens when the ground thaws in the spring? It'll shift. We'll be setting ourselves up for disaster. But Strobridge just shrugs. Then they'll just have to be rebuilt. But right now, we need to keep going. Get your men ready. I want them to start blasting by noon.

Strobridge returns to his tent, giving you no choice but to trudge back to your exhausted men who continue to swing their tools uselessly against frozen ground. This short-sighted obsession with speed is defying all common sense.

When the temperatures dropped in January 1869, Central Pacific graders resorted to using black powder to break up the frozen ground into large pieces. But that meant that once the grade thawed in the spring, the tracks would become unstable. Crocker later recalled how when warm weather arrived, this all melted and down went the track. It was almost impossible to get a train over it without getting off the track.

But winter weather also threatened the Union Pacific Line. In February, a severe snowstorm shut down over 90 miles of track in Wyoming for three weeks. More than 800 passengers were left stranded, including several Americans traveling east for the inauguration of President Ulysses S. Grant.

The railroad's vulnerability to snow caused many to wonder if it would ever truly be viable. Fifty of the stranded passengers signed a letter to the Chicago Tribune describing how the Union Pacific workmen had refused to help them because they had not been paid for three months. They wrote that the railroad was simply an elongated human slaughterhouse.

And accidents on the lines were also common. There were no wayside signals or air brakes in 1869. Brakemen had to manually tighten the brakes on each car by hand, a process that took a half mile or more. And the brakemen were prone to falling as they jumped between cars spaced five or six feet apart.

Severe weather and shoddy work further compounded the dangers. In one instance, a Central Pacific construction train became uncoupled as it was going down the long grade out of the mountains into Reno. The back half gained enough momentum to slam into the front half, crushing two brakemen. Then in February, a Union Pacific engine was struggling to plow through snow when its boiler exploded, killing four crewmen. And three Union Pacific bridges collapsed under their own weight before a single train passed over them.

But despite these delays and accidents, the furious pace of construction continued. On the eastern side of Utah's Promontory Mountains, the Union Pacific's Irish graders and the Central Pacific's Chinese graders often found themselves working within a few feet of each other. Tensions escalated when the Irish crews tried to intimidate the Chinese by tossing frozen clods of earth at them. When the Chinese refused to respond, the Irish attacked them with pickaxes and explosives.

Then the Chinese retaliated with their own blasts, causing an avalanche that buried alive several Union Pacific workers. The escalating violence stopped the feud there, but their competition continued.

By the end of February, only 200 miles of finished track separated the two lines. And as a potential meeting point, both companies had set their sights on Promontory Summit, located to the north of the Promontory Mountains and the Great Salt Lake. The Central Pacific track had almost reached the Nevada-Utah border, but they were still 144 miles west of Promontory Summit, while the Union Pacific was only 66 miles away.

The presumed meeting point at Promontory Summit was a flat, circular basin more than a mile in width. Although the terrain of the summit itself presented no challenges, the eastern slope contained deep ravines that would require the graders to create fills or construct bridges. The biggest ravine was 170 feet deep and 500 feet long.

And so in February 1869, the Central Pacific put 500 Mormon and Chinese graders and 250 horses to work, hauling 10,000 cubic yards of earth into the gorge, creating what was known as the Big Fill.

But almost simultaneously, Union Pacific graders had begun building a parallel bridge known as the Big Trestle. The Big Trestle and the Big Fill span the same ravine, just 150 yards apart. Once completed, the bridge was 400 feet long and 85 feet high. One reporter predicted that the trestle will shake the nerves of the stoutest hearts of railroad travelers when they see that a few feet of round timbers and 7-inch spikes are expected to uphold a train in motion.

To anyone paying attention, it was clear that the two projects were redundant. And by the spring of 1869, the overlapping work in Utah began to draw attention from Congress. Legislators started discussing cutting off funds to the railroad until a meeting point had been settled.

And this threat of losing funds finally spurred the railroad executives into action. On April 9, 1869, Grenville Dodge met again with Collis Huntington in Washington. They agreed that the town of Ogden would serve as the terminus for the Central Pacific's line from Sacramento and the Union Pacific's line from Omaha. But the initial meeting of the two lines would take place at Promontory Summit, roughly 50 miles to the northwest.

The Central Pacific would then buy the Union Pacific's track between Promontory and Ogden for its own use. That evening, Congress made it official with a joint resolution. Charles Crocker was at the end of the Central Pacific line when Huntington wired him the news. He had been suffering from insomnia for months, but he declared that that night, he went to bed and slept like a child. A few days later, the Union Pacific stopped grading west of Promontory, and the Central Pacific stopped grading east of the summit.

Officially, the race was over. But workers on both lines were not about to give up their long, bitter rivalry. Now there was a finish line, and both sides were determined to be the first to cross it.

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Need to hire? You need indeed. In late April 1869, Charles Crocker decided that he was going to beat the Union Pacific to the finish line. He told his crew boss, James Strobridge, that he wanted to lay an unprecedented 10 miles of track in a single day. Strobridge knew it would require careful staging of supplies and a complicated dance between the various workgroups.

They waited until April 27th, when the Central Pacific was 14 miles west of Promontory Summit and the Union Pacific was 9 miles east of the summit, laying a mile a day. The Union Pacific crews were also occupied with rock cutting and the difficult job of completing the Big Trestle. So if the Central Pacific crews succeeded in building 10 miles a day, the Union Pacific would not have enough mileage left to try to beat the record. Crocker staked $10,000 on it in a bet with Thomas Durant.

But on the scheduled day, a train ran off the track after crews laid just two miles, forcing them to postpone the big push until the next day, April 28th. And before dawn that morning, a group of Union Pacific officials, including Durant, Grenville Dodge, and the Caseman brothers, arrived on the scene eager to watch their rivals fail.

When the sun rose at 7.15 a.m., the work began. One thousand men labored in perfect unison. An army official grabbed Crocker's arm and said, I never saw such organization as this. It is just like an army marching across over the ground and leaving a track built behind them. By lunchtime, they had completed six miles. When Strobridge tried to bring in fresh track layers, the elite team of eight who started work that morning refused to stop working, pushed on by the urge to win.

Finally, at 7 p.m., a train whistle blew and the workers laid down their tools. In one 12-hour day, the men had laid just over 10 miles of track. It took more than 25,000 ties, 3,500 iron rails, 28,000 spikes, and 14,000 bolts, but the record was set and a 10-mile day would never again be repeated. When the work was done, Jack Casement congratulated his counterpart, James Strobridge.

But Durant never paid Crocker the $10,000 he lost in their bet. After setting their record, the Central Pacific had just four miles left to go. They reached the end of their line on April 30th. The Union Pacific still had to finish their rock cutting before they could lay their final track. And in the meantime, both railroads downsized their workforces, laying off most of their men.

At last, on the bright and clear morning of May 10, 1869, politicians, executives, and spectators gathered on Promontory Summit for a ceremony to celebrate the meeting of the lines. Two large train engines faced each other. One had traveled 690 miles eastward from Sacramento, the other 1,086 miles westward from Omaha.

There were speeches and music, and then came the long-anticipated moment, the driving of the final spike that would link the two railroads together. The ceremonial spike was fashioned out of solid gold, with the inscription, May God continue the unity of our country as this railroad united the two great oceans. A telegraph wire was attached to the golden spike so that once it was tapped in, telegraph lines would alert the entire nation at once.

Winning an argument with Durant, Central Pacific President Leland Stanford received the honors. When he swung, he missed, striking only the rail and not the golden spike. But it made no difference. The telegraph went out across the country, the transcontinental railroad was complete, and at last, America was united from coast to coast.

Celebrations broke out across the country. San Francisco set off 200 cannon blasts to mark the occasion. Chicago staged a parade that stretched for seven miles. Americans compared the achievement with the Declaration of Independence and the end of slavery. But no one at the Utah ceremony had bothered to invite the widow of the man who had done more than anyone to turn the dream of the railroad into a reality.

May 10, 1869, happened to be Anna and Theodore Judah's 20th wedding anniversary. Nearly a decade had passed since Judah first charted the route through the Sierra Nevada mountains and lobbied the nation's leaders to authorize the transcontinental railroad. Anna spent the day in silence at her home in Massachusetts. She reflected, It seemed as though the spirit of my brave husband descended upon me, and together we were there, unseen, unheard of by man.

After the ceremony, the two companies immediately got started on repairs, shoring up rickety bridges and hastily built tracks. And on May 15, 1869, regular passenger service opened for business. The trip from New York to Sacramento, which once took up to six months and cost $1,000, could now be done in as little as a week for just $150.

This new, continuous railroad service transformed the nation's economy, opening up new markets in the West and expanding American agriculture and mining. Within a decade, the two companies were hauling $50 million of freight every year. And the railroad carried ideas and innovation from coast to coast as well. It helped create a continent-wide culture in which mail, magazines, and books could easily travel from east to west.

But the truth remained that the railroad was financed through a complex maze of corporate fraud and government corruption. And during the election of 1872, a bombshell investigation by the New York Sun exposed the operations of Credit Mobilier, giving birth to one of the century's most explosive scandals. Imagine it's a late afternoon in January 1873, and you're in Washington, D.C., sitting in a committee room in Congress.

You're the chairman of this five-man committee charged with investigating Credit Mobilier. You and the other members are interviewing Congressman Oaks Ames, who sits on the other side of a long, polished wooden table. The setting sun streams rays through the window, casting him in shadow. You hold up a piece of paper for him to see. Now, I hold here a list of 14 senators and congressmen who stand accused of purchasing shares in Credit Mobilier. Congressman Ames, did you sell shares to these men? No.

You slide the paper across the table, and Ames glances down to scan it. Yes, I did. And did you sell these shares at insider prices? Yes, but the transactions were completely honest and honorable. Did you sell the shares to your colleagues in Congress with the purpose of influencing their votes? Ames straightens up in his chair, a wounded look on his face. No, of course not. The sales were simply kind gestures to friends of the railroad. Bribes are something you do for men who are opposed to you.

It's impossible to bribe someone who's already your friend. You raise your eyebrows at the colleagues beside you before turning back to Ames. I'm afraid I don't follow your logic. Did you or did you not sell stock to your colleagues in exchange for their votes? I never made a promise to anyone nor demanded one in return. Wouldn't dream of it. I'm sure you wouldn't.

You make a note of Ames' words, trying your best not to betray your frustration. Ames crosses his arms, his expression stoic. You must understand that when no one else would fund the railroad, I staked my reputation and fortune on an enterprise of immeasurable benefit to this government.

Yes, I have friends, some of them in Congress, with whom I have shared opportunities of investment. I have here today and elsewhere told the truth and concealed nothing. Yet I alone am offered up as a sacrifice to atone for the sins of others. You breathe a long sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose. You may have helped fund the railroad, but you have also tainted Congress with your corruption and done irreparable damage to the public's trust in government. I think we've heard enough. Committee is adjourned and will resume at 10 o'clock tomorrow.

The other committee members stand and begin to file out of the room, but you're still thinking of Ames. You're stunned by his lack of remorse and the extent of the corruption that has taken place within these hallowed halls.

Despite a congressional investigation, the major players at Credit Mobilier escaped unscathed, including Thomas Durant, who had resigned from the Union Pacific shortly after the railroad was completed. Congressman Oaks Ames was the lone scapegoat, and he received a censure from Congress and then died soon after. And although legislators investigated the Central Pacific, too, they turned up no evidence of corruption.

Most of the records had been burned, and in the years that followed, the Big Four continued building railroads in California, including a line from Sacramento to San Francisco, which brought the railroad to the Pacific Ocean. They became enormously wealthy and spent their fortunes lavishly.

But their wealth would not have been possible without the extraordinary efforts of the thousands of Chinese immigrants whose hands actually built the railroad. Many of these men went on to help build new lines in the West, but their crucial role would soon be forgotten because beginning in 1882, Congress enacted a series of laws banning Chinese immigration.

They were not the only group who suffered. The railroad quickly became the preferred mode of transport for migrants moving west of the Missouri River, and it helped facilitate the settlement of some 200 million acres. Amid this massive influx of white settlers, the U.S. government consigned virtually all Plains Indians to reservations by the mid-1880s in violation of numerous treaties. The buffalo herds these tribes depended upon were nearly eradicated by settlers and carloads of sports hunters.

And by the end of the 19th century, only 1,000 buffalo remained of the tens of millions that once roamed the plains.

In the end, the Transcontinental Railroad was a staggering achievement of engineering and a testament to American grit and ingenuity. It conquered time and space, united a nation, and opened vast new markets. But it also unleashed unprecedented corporate and political graft and left a trail of environmental and human destruction in its wake. When the final tie was spiked, it marked the end of one era and the dawn of another, an exhilarating new age of speed, progress, and profit.

From Wondery, this is episode four of our four-part series, Transcontinental Railroad from American History Tellers. On the next episode, I'll speak with Su Li, historian and former executive director of the Chinese Historical Society of America, about the experience of Chinese railroad workers. We'll also hear from a descendant of one of those workers. ♪

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 Mohamed Shanzib. Sound design by Molly Bach. Music by Lindsey Graham. This episode is written by Ellie Stanton. Edited by Dorian Moreno.

Produced by Alita Rozanski. Managing producers are Desi Blaylock and Matt Gant. Senior managing producer, Ryan Lohr. Senior producer, Andy Herman. And executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman, Marsha Louis, and Erin O'Flaherty for Wondery.

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