1. The Transcontinental Railroad (1869)

2. Purpose of the Transcontinental Railroad ► Businesses  Get money by transporting goods and people

3. Purpose of the Transcontinental Railroad ► Government  Unite the country (east and west coasts)  Make it easier to transport mail and troops

4. Two railroads ► Two railroad companies involved in construction.  Union Pacific and Central Pacific ► To increase construction speed (which the government wants)

5. Financing the Railroads ► To get companies to take on the enormous task of building the railroads, the federal government gave both land and cash to railroad companies.

6. Land Grants ► 200 feet of land on each side of the railroad track  Designed for railroad buildings, stations, repair shops, etc. ► 1 square mile, every other mile, for 5- 10 miles beyond that.  Created in a checkerboard fashion.

9. Money ► Up to $48,000 a mile given to companies for “building costs”  They got paid more to blast tunnels through mountain terrain.

10. 1)Chinese immigrants were the primary labor force building the Transcontinental Railroad 2)Often subject to racism and forced to do the most dangerous jobs IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

11. Promontory, Utah ► The last spike in the Transcontinental Railroad is driven in a large ceremony in 1869.

13. The idea of the frontier ► ► Proposed by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in the early 1900’s. ► ► Every year up to 1890, there was always a line beyond which no civilization could be located.

14. ► ► With the completion of the railroads, westward movement of thousands of people and relocation of American Indians onto reservations, the frontier ceased to exist.