History of America BUILDING THE TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD Written by Linda Thompson Rourke Educational Media rourkeeducationalmedia com Scan for Related Titles and Teacher Resources
Chapter 1 BUILDING THE TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD When the 19th century began the United States had only 17 states and one large territory The country’s western border was the Mississippi River But by the end of 1803 President Thomas Jefferson had bought the vast and unknown land called Louisiana from France Stretching from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains it included 828,000 square miles 2,144,510 square kilometers of unknown land Before the railroad was built explorers and traders headed west in carts pulled by livestock 4
In the 1840s families began to head west in covered wagons drawn by mules or oxen The journey by wagon took four months or more Many people and animals died on this difficult journey By the 1850s stagecoaches pulled by fast horses began to carry mail and passengers from the Missouri River to the West Coast in less than three weeks But nothing could carry heavy loads such as timber coal steel or livestock better than a train RAILROAD FEVER In 1829 an engineer named Horatio Allen brought one of the new Iron Horses from England and tested it on a 3-mile 4 8 kilometer section of track at a Pennsylvania coal mine Within a few years railroad fever had swept the country By 1840 the East Coast had nearly 3,000 miles 4,800 kilometers of track more than in all of Europe In February 1854 railroads reached the Mississippi River And 10 years later there were 33,860 miles 54,200 kilometers of completed railway in the United States with 16,000 more miles 25,745 kilometers under construction Horatio Allen 1802 1889 5
