The building of railroads across America had been a mighty race from the very beginning of construction. But in the spring of 1868 the contest between the Central and Union Pacific Railroads intensified mightily.
On May 4th, the Central Pacific reached the Truckee River on the California-Nevada border. Now the hardest part of the CPR's construction was behind them. It had taken them five years to cross the Sierras. The boring of the sixteen-hundred-foot Summit tunnel had taken up, alone, two of those difficult years. It was also that budding season that the Central Pacific's Chinese workers advanced down the eastern slope of the Sierras, then moved on across the Nevada flatlands. Soon, they would be advancing towards the industrious land of the Mormons in Utah.
The Central Pacific's advance took them to the newly created town of Reno, named for General Jesse L. Reno of Civil War fame, where twenty-five-foot storefront lots were selling for twelve hundred dollars. Soon the station at Reno was built and crews were sent back into the Sierra snows to complete the seven-mile gap between Reno and Sacramento, California.
Back in the ever expanding Mormon city of Salt Lake, Mormon leader Brigham Young both wanted and worried about a railroad crossing Utah. His major concern was that a railroad would bring large numbers of non-Mormons to his land. He dreaded the thought of the corrupt "civilization" invading the Mormon domain. He was certain the railroad would bring in the same caliber of folks he had led his people away from as they trekked into Utah's desert land. But being a good leader he showed to his followers an outward appearance of enthusiasm about the railroad and expressed his feelings, according to Samuel Bowles's Our New West in 1869, by stating that Mormonism "must, indeed, be a -------- poor religion, if it cannot withstand one railroad." [The "--------" replaces some colorful adjectives that Young supposedly used.]
Young was also well aware that a railroad could bring in a lot of Mormons, "especially converts arriving on the East Coast from Europe, to Utah." He urged construction to "Hasten the work!" and that "We want to hear the iron horse puffing through this valley. What for? To bring our brothers and sisters here."
To back up his own words, Young invested in the Union Pacific Railroad Company. He accepted an appointment as a director, then supplied men and logistical support for the survey of the Wasatch Mountains conducted by the railroad. To further show his support, on May 21, 1868, Young signed a contract with the UPS to provide Mormon labor for all the grading, tunneling, and bridge work for about 150 miles of the railroad east of the Great Salt Lake. Young had a double purpose in this: first it would put money, at two dollars a day, into Mormon pockets, and for now it would keep Gentile laborers out of Utah.
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