 Railroads, as private companies, needed to engage in profitable projects. So the federal government passed the Pacific Railroad Act that provided land grants to railroads. This provided public lands to railroad companies in exchange for building tracks in specific locations. The idea was that with railroad expansion in new territory, settlers would follow, establish communities, and increase the value of land. Railroads could sell their portions of land and profit from their investment. The federal government hoped the railroad profits would be reinvested for further expansion. The U.S. government provided the survey of public lands and divided them into one-mile square sections. The government kept a portion of the sections. The railroads received alternate sections, in a kind of checkerboard pattern. The government lands could be offered for homesteading or sold for a profit. Supporters of the land grants program believed it would be successful for all parties. Others were concerned about the relationship between the federal government and private companies. Most railroads provided service to specific regions, but they could profit from shipping goods to and from communities. Those who opposed the land grant program felt railroads were receiving too much of a subsidy. Between 1850 and 1870, seven percent of the land in the United States was given to 80 railroads; mostly in the west. Railroad companies were given one-sixth of the land in Kansas. Portions from The Kansas Journey. Entry: Railroad Land Grants Author: Kansas Historical Society Author information: The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency charged with actively safeguarding and sharing the state's history. Date Created: March 2011 Date Modified: March 2019 The author of this article is solely responsible for its content. This act, passed on July 1, 1862, provided Federal subsidies in land and loans for the construction of a transcontinental railroad across the United States. The question of "internal improvements" was frequently before Congress in the 19th century: Should Congress assist in improving the country’s transportation system? One such improvement was the dream of constructing a railroad that would cross the entire country. In the 1850s, Congress commissioned several topographical surveys across the West to determine the best route for a railroad, but private corporations were reluctant to undertake the task without Federal assistance. In 1862, Congress passed the Pacific Railway Act, which designated the 32nd parallel as the initial transcontinental route, and provided government bonds to fund the project and large grants of lands for rights-of-way. The Act aided in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean and secured the use of that line to the government. The legislation authorized two railroad companies, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific, to construct the lines. Beginning in 1863, the Union Pacific, employing more than 8,000 Irish, German, and Italian immigrants, built west from Omaha, NE; the Central Pacific, whose workforce included over 10,000 Chinese laborers, built eastward from Sacramento, CA. Each company faced unprecedented construction problems, severe weather, and conflict with American Indians, whose ancestral lands were transected by the railroads. On May 10, 1869, the last rails were laid and the last spike was driven in during a ceremony at Promontory, UT. The completion of the transcontinental railroad shortened a journey of several months to about one week. Congress eventually authorized four transcontinental railroads and granted 174 million acres of public lands for rights-of-way.
On May 10, 1869, the presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet in Promontory, Utah, and drive a ceremonial last spike into a rail line that connects their railroads. This made transcontinental railroad travel possible for the first time in U.S. history. No longer would western-bound travelers need to take the long and dangerous journey by wagon train. READ
MORE: 10 Ways the Transcontinental Railroad Changed America Since at least 1832, both Eastern and frontier statesmen realized a need to connect the two coasts. It was not until 1853, though, that Congress appropriated funds to survey several routes for the transcontinental railroad. The actual building of the railroad would have to wait even longer, as North-South tensions
prevented Congress from reaching an agreement on where the line would begin. One year into the Civil War, a Republican-controlled Congress passed the Pacific Railroad Act (1862), guaranteeing public land grants and loans to the two railroads it chose to build the transcontinental line, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific. With these in hand, the railroads began work in 1866 from
Omaha and Sacramento, forging a northern route across the country. In their eagerness for land, the two lines built right past each other, and the final meeting place had to be renegotiated. Harsh winters, staggering summer heat and the lawless, rough-and-tumble conditions of newly settled western towns made conditions for the Union Pacific laborers—mainly Civil War veterans of Irish
descent—miserable. The overwhelmingly immigrant Chinese work force of the Central Pacific also had its fair share of problems, including brutal 12-hour work days laying tracks over the Sierra Nevada Mountains (they also received lower wages than their white counterparts). On more than one occasion, whole crews would be lost to avalanches, or mishaps with explosives would leave several dead. READ MORE:
Building the Transcontinental Railroad: How 20,000 Chinese Immigrants Made It Happen For all the adversity they suffered, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific workers were able to finish the railroad–laying nearly 2,000 miles of track–by 1869, ahead of schedule and under budget. Journeys that had taken months by wagon train or weeks by boat now took only days. Their work had an
immediate impact: The years following the construction of the railway were years of rapid growth and expansion for the United States, due in large part to the speed and ease of travel that the railroad provided. On May 10, 2002, Robert Hanssen, a former FBI agent who intermittently sold state secrets to Russia
over the course of two decades, receives his sentencing for espionage: life in prison without the possibility of parole. "I apologize for my behavior. I am shamed by it," said ...read more On May 10, 1970, 40 seconds into overtime of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup final, Boston Bruins star Bobby Orr slips the winning goal past St. Louis Blues goaltender Glenn Hall. After scoring, Orr leaps into the air before
landing flat and sliding into his teammates’ embrace. The ...read more Jefferson Davis, president of the fallen Confederate government, is captured with his wife and entourage near Irwinville, Georgia, by a detachment of Union General James H. Wilson’s cavalry. On April 2, 1865, with the Confederate defeat at Petersburg, Virginia imminent, General
...read more
In South Africa, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is sworn in as the first Black president of South Africa. In his inaugural address, Mandela, who spent 27 years of his life as a political prisoner of the South African government, declared that “the time for the healing of the wounds ...read more On May 10, 1980, United States Secretary of the Treasury G. William Miller announces the approval of
nearly $1.5 billion dollars in federal loan guarantees for the nearly bankrupt Chrysler Corporation. At the time, it was the largest rescue package ever granted by the U.S. ...read more Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, is called to replace Neville Chamberlain as British prime minister following the latter’s resignation after losing a confidence vote in the House of Commons. In 1938, Prime
Minister Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement with Nazi ...read more On May 10, 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes has the White House’s first telephone
installed in the mansion's telegraph room. President Hayes embraced the new technology, though he rarely received phone calls. In fact, the Treasury Department possessed the only other direct ...read more Eight climbers die on Mount Everest during a storm on May 10, 1996. It was the worst loss of life ever on the mountain on a single day. Author Jon Krakauer, who himself attempted to climb the peak that year, wrote a best-selling book
about the incident, Into Thin Air, which was ...read more J. Edgar Hoover is named acting director of the Bureau of Investigation (now the FBI) on May 10, 1924. By the end of the year he was officially promoted to director. This began his 48-year tenure in power, during which time he personally shaped American criminal justice in the ...read more The government of the People’s Republic of China announces that it is releasing 211 people arrested during the massive protests held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in June 1989. Most observers viewed the prisoner release as an attempt by the communist government of China to ...read more The South loses one of its boldest generals on May 10, 1863, when 39-year-old Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson dies of pneumonia a week after his own troops accidentally fired on him during the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia. In the first two years of the war, Jackson ...read more On May 10, 1775, Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold lead a successful attack on Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York, while the Second Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Congress faced the task of conducting a war already in progress. Fighting had ...read more The humiliating defeat of Louis Napoleon’s Second Empire of France is made complete on May 10, 1871, when the Treaty of Frankfurt am Main is signed, ending the Franco-Prussian War and marking the decisive entry of a newly unified German state on the stage of European power ...read more How did the US government encourage the transcontinental railroad?In 1862, Congress passed the Pacific Railway Act, which designated the 32nd parallel as the initial transcontinental route, and provided government bonds to fund the project and large grants of lands for rights-of-way.
How did the government encourage the growth of railroads?The federal government gave land grants to many railroad companies. Railroads would then sell the land to settlers, real estate companies, and other business to raise money they needed to build the railroad.
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In what ways did the federal government encourage the development of a transcontinental railroad?
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