Transcontinental railroad

In a new travelling exhibition, the significance of the transcontinental railroad, finished in 1869, will be celebrated in a series of images capturing its arduous construction through to its triumphant completion

On this day in 1869, the two sides of the first transcontinental railroad met in Promontory, Utah. What started as a competition between two dueling companies, ended with nearly 2,000 miles of track and the first railroad line that stretched the entire width of the United States. Learn more in our Trains Unit!

Southern Pacific Railroad advertisement from 1885. The company was founded in 1865 as a land holding company and became a railroad when it acquired the Central Pacific in 1885. The Central Pacific had employed as many as 12,000 emigrant Chinese laborers to build the railroad line from California to Utah where the "golden spike" was laid in 1869 to form the first transcontinental railroad. Utah was the connecting place with the Union Pacific railroad which had been built west from Council…

In a new travelling exhibition, the significance of the transcontinental railroad, finished in 1869, will be celebrated in a series of images capturing its arduous construction through to its triumphant completion

A 19th century railroad tale from the 1898 book 'Danger Signals' by John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady.

Track work takes place in Nevada as Central Pacific forces build the western link of the first transcontinental railroad, now a part of the Southern Pacific system, on May 10, 1868. Rail layers shown in the foreground were followed by groups of Chinese laborers who spaced and spiked the rail to the ties. Photo: Anonymous, AP

Railroad

The Black Hills Pioneer is the oldest business in West River Dakota Territory, and this year marks our 140th year telling the story of the Black Hills. Over time our newspaper has taken over the title of numerous other publications and we would like to share some of the more compelling stories from all of those early editions.

Researchers discovered the remains of a mid-19th century house, a centuries-old Chinese coin and other traces of the short-lived town of Terrace

How did they do this back then