 People  Freight  Steel  Coal  Cattle  Amenities from East  Links west to rest of country People begin to settle near railroads instead of rivers

 Lays Framework for Financing of Transcontinental railways

 Start in Missouri and build westward (linking St. Louis)  Irish and Scandinavian immigrants  Cheap labor, hauling rocks and heavy materials  Also need surveying skills  Easier job, not dealing with as many mountains

 Supposedly a French company  Really set up by Union Pacific  Gave contractors a contract to lay track for $94 million  Only cost $50  Pocketed the rest  Corruption in business

 Will build from California -> East  Chinese laborers  Experienced in mountains and high cliffs  Build the Great Wall of China  Used dynamite to blow through mountains  Harder because going through mountains

Union Pacific and Central Pacific would meet at Promontory Point, Utah

 Professor C.F. Dowd  Designates 24 time zones in the world  U.S. into four zones  Eastern, central, mountain, pacific  BC departure and arrival times needed to be consistent  The Day of Two Suns  Day all the railroads set their clocks to be the same

 Distance between the rails on the railroads  Every company creating own gauge  So diff. companies could not attach to each other  1886 standard size gauge agreed upon so trains could travel freely