Read Nothing Like It in the World The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 Online
Authors: STEPHEN E. AMBROSE,Karolina Harris,Union Pacific Museum Collection
19
Charles Crocker's remarks on his Bancroft biography, Bancroft Library.
20
Reno Crescent,
July 14, 1868, quoted in Griswold, Work of Giants, p. 244.
21
Huntington to Charles Crocker, July 1, 1868, Huntington Papers.
22
Griswold,
Work of Giants,
pp. 245-46.
23
Clement to Stanford, July 21, 1887, U.S. Pacific Railway Commission, exhibit no. 8.
24
Charles Crocker to Huntington, July 15, 1868, Huntington Papers.
25
Kraus,
High Road to Promontory,
p. 203.
26
Crocker interview on his biography, Bancroft Library.
27
San Francisco Chronicle,
Sept. 7, 1868, quoted in Kraus,
High Road to Promontory,
pp. 204-11.
28
Quoted in ibid., p. 211.
29
Griswold,
Work of Giants,
pp. 247-48.
30
Huntington to Charles Crocker, Oct. 21, 1868, Huntington Papers.
31
Humboldt Register,
Aug. 1, Oct. 3, and Dec. 26, 1868.
32
Kraus,
High Road to Promontory,
p. 212.
33
Griswold,
Work of Giants,
p. 253.
34
Kraus,
High Road to Promontory,
pp. 216-21.
35
Huntington to Stanford, Nov. 13, 1868, Huntington Papers.
36
Stanford to Huntington, Nov. 21, 1868, Huntington Papers.
37
Stanford to E. B. Crocker, Dec. 1, 4, and 8, 1868, Huntington Papers. All these letters are reprinted in Kraus,
High Road to Promontory.
38
Huntington to Hopkins, Dec. 15, 1868, in Kraus,
High Road to Promontory,
p. 227.
C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN:
T
HE
R
AILROADS
R
ACE INTO
U
TAH
1
Charles Edgar Ames,
Pioneering the Union Pacific,
pp. 558-59.
2
Young to Durant, Jan. 15, 1869, Brigham Young Papers.
3
Young to Dillon, May 19, 1869; to Durant, same date; to Duff, Aug. 12, 1869; to Bushnell, Aug. 12, 1869; to Oliver Ames, Aug. 12, 1869; to Durant, Aug. 14, 1869; to Hammond, Nov. 12, 1869, plus others, all in Young Papers.
4
Charles Francis Adams, Jr., “The Pacific Railroad Ring,”
North American Review,
Jan. 1869, pp. 116-50 passim.
5
Ames,
Pioneering the Union Pacific,
pp. 244-45, 300.
6
Adams, “Pacific Railroad Ring,” p. 118.
7
Salt Lake Daily Reporter,
Feb. 16, 1869.
8
Crocker to Huntington, and Hopkins to Huntington, Jan. 20, 1869, Huntington Papers; also quoted in Griswold,
Work of Giants,
p. 297.
9
Crocker Memoir, Bancroft Library.
10
Ibid.
11
Sacramento Union,
April 15, 1869, quoted in Griswold,
Work of Giants,
p. 296.
12
Griswold,
Work of Giants,
pp. 298-99.
13
Ibid., pp. 299-300.
14
Ibid, pp. 300-301.
15
Ibid., p. 305.
16
Ames,
Pioneering the Union Pacific,
p. 329.
17
Maury Klein,
Birth of a Railroad,
pp. 200-201.
18
Sacramento Union,
March 6, 1869.
19
New York Tribune,
March 6, 1869.
20
Quoted in Griswold,
Work of Giants,
pp. 292-93.
21
Ibid., p. 298.
22
Omaha Weekly Herald,
Dec. 30, 1868.
23
Klein,
Birth of a Railroad,
p. 191.
24
George Kraus,
High Road to Promontory,
pp. 228-29.
25
Griswold,
Work of Giants,
p. 303.
26
Sacramento Union,
Jan. 19, 1869.
27
Klein,
Birth of a Railroad,
p. 210.
28
Crocker Memoir, Bancroft Library.
29
Ames,
Pioneering the Union Pacific,
p. 328.
30
Ibid., pp. 329-32.
31
Kraus,
High Road to Promontory,
pp. 198-200.
32
Ibid., p. 197.
33
Ibid., pp. 229-31; Klein,
Birth of a Railroad,
p. 195.
34
Klein,
Birth of a Railroad,
pp. 196-97.
35
Quoted in Kraus,
High Road to Promontory,
p. 231.
36
Salt Lake Daily Reporter,
Feb. 16, 1869.
37
Reno Crescent,
March 20, 1869.
38
Robert Utley and Francis Ketterson, Jr.,
Golden Spike,
pp. 34-35.
39
Grenville M. Dodge,
How We Built the Union Pacific Railway,
p. 118.
40
Collis Huntington Memoir, Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley. The affair is discussed in Griswold,
Work of Giants,
pp. 285-87.
41
Ames,
Pioneering the Union Pacific,
p. 312.
42
Kraus,
High Road to Promontory,
p. 237.
43
Young to Durant, April 2, 1869, Young Papers.
44
Ames,
Pioneering the Union Pacific,
p. 333.
45
Ibid., p. 314.
46
Klein,
Birth of a Railroad,
pp. 202-3.
47
Griswold,
Work of Giants,
p. 306.
48
Ibid., p. 305.
49
Salt Lake Deseret News,
April 1, 1869. See also Kraus,
High Road to Promontory,
pp. 237-41.
50
Utley and Ketterson, Jr.,
Golden Spike,
p. 35.
51
Ibid.
52
Klein,
Birth of a Railroad,
p. 210.
53
Griswold,
Work of Giants,
pp. 291-92.
54
Kraus,
High Road to Promontory,
p. 244.
55
Crocker Memoir, Bancroft Library.
56
Klein,
Birth of a Railroad,
p. 211.
57
Griswold,
Work of Giants,
p. 295.
C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN:
T
O THE
S
UMMIT
1
Maury Klein,
Birth of a Railroad,
p. 210.
2
Ibid., p. 212.
3
Ibid., p. 213.
4
Ibid., pp. 214-15.
5
Ibid., p. 217.
6
San Francisco Daily Alta California,
April 23, 1869.
7
Ibid., April 26, 1869.
8
Robert Utley and Francis Ketterson, Jr.,
Golden Spike,
p. 39.
9
San Francisco Daily Alta California,
April 27, 1869.
10
Crocker Memoir, Bancroft Library.
11
Ibid.; Wesley S. Griswold,
A Work of Giants,
pp. 309-20.
12
San Francisco Bulletin,
April 29, 1869.
13
Klein,
Birth of a Railroad,
p. 219.
14
San Francisco Bulletin,
April 30, 1869.
15
Crocker Memoir, Bancroft Library.
16
Ibid.
17
Griswold,
Work of Giants,
pp. 311-13.
18
Huntington to Charles Crocker, May 10, 1869, Huntington Papers.
19
San Francisco Daily Alta California,
April 30, 1869.
20
Ibid., May 2, 1869.
21
San Francisco Bulletin,
May 1, 1869.
22
Grenville M. Dodge,
How We Built the Union Pacific Railway,
p. 54.
23
San Francisco Daily Alta California,
April 28, 1869.
24
George Kraus,
High Road to Promontory,
p. 258.
25
Dodge,
How We Built,
p. 68.
26
San Francisco Daily Alta California,
May 5, 1869.
27
Salt Lake Deseret News,
May 6, 1869.
28
Quoted in Kraus,
High Road to Promontory,
p. 258.
29
Griswold,
Work of Giants,
p. 312.
C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN:
D
ONE
1
Wesley S. Griswold,
A Work of Giants,
p. 328.
2
Robert Athearn, “General Sherman and the Western Railroads,” p. 48.
3
Maury Klein,
Birth of a Railroad,
p. 220.
4
New York Herald,
May 10, 1869, quoted in ibid., p. 222.
5
Charles Edgar Ames,
Pioneering the Union Pacific,
pp. 321-23; Klein,
Birth of a Railroad,
pp. 219-20.
6
San Francisco Bulletin,
May 11, 1869.
7
Ames,
Pioneering the Union Pacific,
pp. 322-23.
8
J.N. Bowman, “Driving the Last Spike,”
California Historical Society Quarterly,
vol. 36 (1957), pp. 98-99.
9
George Kraus,
High Road to Promontory,
p. 264; Griswold,
Work of Giants,
p. 317.
10
Kraus,
High Road to Promontory,
p. 267.
11
See all the various newspapers from Salt Lake, Sacramento, San Francisco, and elsewhere for accounts of the festivities, as well as all the books on the UP and CP.
12
San Francisco Daily Alta Californian,
May 10, 1869. It is not often that, when quoting someone else's writing, I say to myself, “I wish I had written that,” but in this case I do wish that the last eight words were mine.
13
Klein,
Birth of a Railroad,
p. 220.
14
Hugh O'Neil, “List of Persons Present, Promontory, Utah, May 10, 1869,”
Utah Historical Quarterly,
vol. 24 (1956), pp. 157-63.
15
Griswold,
Work of Giants,
p. 325.
16
Kraus,
High Road to Promontory,
pp. 278-81; Klein,
Birth of a Railroad,
p. 225.
17
Chicago Tribune,
May 11, 1869.
18
Klein,
Birth of a Railroad,
p. 226.
19
New York Tribune, Chicago Tribune, Salt Lake Deseret News, San Francisco Daily Alta California, San Francisco Bulletin,
and other newspapers for May 11 and 12, 1869, carry these and other telegrams.
20
Dodge,
How We Built the Union Pacific Railway,
p. 66.
21
Anna Judah Papers, Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley.
22
Salt Lake Deseret News,
May 11, 1869.
E
PILOGUE
1
Trans-Continental,
May 30, 1870.
2
Sidney Dillon, “Historic Moments: Driving the Last Spike of the Union Pacific,”
Scribner's Magazine,
Aug. 1892, p. 254.
3
“Pacific Railroad Grants,”
Putnam's Magazine,
Oct. 1868, pp. 488-89.
4
Charles Edgar Ames,
Pioneering the Union Pacific,
pp. 371-73.
5
Robert Utley and Francis Ketterson, Jr.,
Golden Spike,
pp. 83-84.
6
Oliver Ames to C. G. Hammond, Sept. 2, 1869, Brigham Young Papers.
7
New York Sun,
Sept. 4, 1872.
8
Ames,
Pioneering the Union Pacific,
p. 492.
9
Both quoted in Lloyd Mercer,
Railroads and Land Grant Policy
(New York: Academic Press, 1982), p. 13.
10
Ibid., p. 9.
11
Robert Henry, “The RR Land Grant Legend in American History Texts,”
Mississippi Valley Historical Review,
vol. 32 (1945-46), p. 186.
12
Ibid., p. 182.
13
Klein,
Birth of a Railroad,
p. 238.
14
Ibid., p. 4.
Allen, John Logan.
North American Exploration: A Continent Comprehended.
3 volumes. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.
Ames, Charles Edgar.
Pioneering the Union Pacific: A Reappraisal of the Builders of the Railroad.
New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1969.
Athearn, Robert G.
Union Pacific Country.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971.
Bancroft, Hubert Howe.
History of California,
vol. 7 (1860-1890). San Francisco: History Company, 1890.
-----
History of Utah.
San Francisco: History Company, 1890.
Basler, Roy P., ed.
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln.
9 volumes. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953-55.
Bowles, Samuel.
Across the Continent: A Summer's Journey to the Rocky Mountains.
Springfield, Mass.: S. Bowles, 1866.
-----.
Our New West: Records of Travel: A Full Description of the Pacific Railroad.
Hartford, Conn.: Hartford Publishing, 1869.
Bracken, Jeanne Minn, ed.
Iron Horses Across America.
Carlisle, Mass.: Discovery Enterprises, 1995.
Chandler, Alfred D.
Strategy and Structure: Chapters in History of the Industrial Enterprise.
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1962.
Chinn, Thomas W., ed.
A History of the Chinese in California: A Syllabus.
San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of America, 1969.
Clarke, Thomas Curtis, et al.
The American Railway: Its Construction, Development, Management and Appliances.
New York: Scribner, 1889.
Cochran, Thomas C.
Railroad Leaders 1845-1890: The Business Mind in Action.
New York: Russell and Russell, 1965.