The Railroad, part 8

By January of 1863 some major happenings were taking place around the United States. At the forefront, and causing a major economical upheaval, was the American Civil War. Not to be left out, Collis Huntington, Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, and Mark Hopkins, known as the Big 4, broke ground out in Sacramento, California for the start of the railroad they had founded, the Central Pacific.

Coming from east to west, the Union Pacific was chugging along and by 1866 they had laid tracks through Nebraska. There progress was at the incredible rate, for the times, at about a mile-a-day. The good ole boys of the Big 4 were going to have to do some hauling to catch up and of course they were always on the lookout for more funding.

The government had passed a bill granting the fellows of the Central Pacific $48,000 a mile for tracks laid over the Sierras as well as the lesser amount of $16,000 a mile for building the railroad over the flat lands. But still, a buck is a buck and all this brought up an interesting question: Just where did the mountains really start and the flat lands end?

So Leland Stanford put on his thinking cap and came up with the thought that sometime back an old geological report that, due to certain soil and rock formations, put the base of the Rocky Mountains right at the shores of the Mississippi River. Never mind about the vast Great Plains between the Rockies and the river. Putting this theory to work on the Sierras, a report of the soil and rocks in the California region between Sacramento and the Sierras was sent back east to Washington. Well, the information that was deciphered from these earthly samples sure surprised some concerned easterners including President Lincoln when they were informed that the Sierras began to rise twenty-four miles west of where they actually did. Now that doesn't seem like a lot of difference, not until you start doing the math. After doing the calculations the new total came out to the amount of an additional $768,000. Not bad pay for a day's work of picking up a few rock and a handful or two of dirt.

Who is to say just how much the President and others involved were really fooled but Lincoln wanted, and needed, that railroad. There was still considerable gold in them thar California hills and the war effort needed that gold and needed it just as soon as it was possible to lay their war-fighting hands on it. There was also the silver in Nevada to be had and shipped east. The additional funds were approved and the government paid up in genuine American greenbacks. However, that in its self presented a new problem for the Big 4.

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