Central Pacific Railroad begins importing Chinese labor directly from China
The Sacramento Union reports that upwards of 4,000 Chinese laborers are now in the employ of Central Pacific (out of around 5,000 total laborers).
The Chinese labor force has now swelled to at least 8,000.
Several thousand Chinese laborers strike for better pay. Central Pacific counters by cutting off all supplies to the labor camps in an attempt to starve out the protesters. They are successful, as work resumes with no pay increase.
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Approaching the final destination in Promontory Summit, Utah, Chinese workers help lay 10 miles of track in a single working day, a record of the time and a phenomenal achievement of human effort.
The railroad is completed. Chinese workers allegedly hammer in the final tie. During celebrations and promotion of the railroad, Chinese laborers are largely kept out of the spotlight, with hardly any mention of their contribution.
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1865 1865 1867 1867 1869 1869 Chinese workers greet a train on a winter day.
Source: Joseph Becker - Library of Congress
er themselves over soaring cliffs to chip away at the hard granite and plant explosives to clear a path for the track. This was an effective, efficient, but often times fatal method. There is no exact number on how many died during construction; there is hardly even an exact number on how many Chinese laborers were even employed at the time. Many accounts report that during just the winter of 1865-1866, as many as 1,200 Chinese laborers perished due to avalanches, accidents, or explosions. Even making camp in the rugged terrain was an arduous task, but the Chinese proved skillful in this regard as well. The Chinese laborers had brought dried goods from the Chinatowns in San Francisco and Sacramento, and would also bring along live chicken and pigs. Compared to the Irish diet, who lived off an unvarying diet of boiled beef and potatoes, the Chinese were living relatively well off. They bathed daily, washed their clothes, and remained sober – opting for tea over whiskey. This cleanliness allowed the Chinese workers to largely avoid many of the illnesses and diseases, such as dysentery, that were common to the Irish workers. Progress was slow, as the hard granite proved to be a mighty foe. However, the Chinese kept at it, building some of the longest tunnels in the world at the time. Summit Tunnel, also known as Tunnel No.6, was over 1,500 feet long. In all, the Chinese built 15 tunnels through the mountains, each being roughly 32 feet high and 16 feet across. 1-3
The 10 Mile Day, The Last Spike, “DONE”
To keep the construction going during the winter months, massive wooden snow galleries were constructed. These sheds had a sloped roof that would meet directly with the upward slope of the mountain so an avalanche would pass right over without destroying the structure. When there was a canyon between the wooden snow galleries and the mountain, which would put the structure at risk of a direct hit from an avalanche, “Chinese Walls” were built from stone to protect the vulnerable structure. The final leg of the Sierra Nevada portion of the track had to pass through Donner Pass, which had quite a nasty reputation in this time. The Pass is named for a frontier era group of pioneers who became trapped there during the winter of 1846. Of the 81 members of the original party, only 46 survived. When they were discovered, rescuers found that the group had resorted to cannibalism to keep from starving. After completion of the Donner Pass Tunnel in the spring of 1868, five years after the beginning of construction through the mountains, the rest of the terrain proved no match for the hardened workers.
After making it through the Sierra Nevadas, the terrain leveled out and remained relatively flat. As the two lines began to inch closer and closer to their final destination, egos began to roar. Union Pacific Railroad (building from the East) declared their supremacy by laying six miles of track in a single day. Not to be outdone, Central Pacific, under orders from Charles Crocker, laid seven miles of track. Union Pacific then laid seven and a half miles of track, and challenged Crocker and his “Chinese pets” to beat it1 . Charles Crocker accepted this challenge, and then some. He claimed his crews could lay an unfathomable 10 miles of track in a single day. The claim was met with skepticism and outright ridicule: the Vice President of Union Pacific even waged $10,000 that it could not be done2. On April 28th, 1869, a Central Pacific crew of eight Irishmen and “a small army of Chinese laborers”3 laid 10 miles and 56 feet of line in just under 12 hours. The feat would go down as one of the greatest triumphs of human labor the world had ever seen. While the Irishmen would have their names forever etched into the minds of Americans through their many interviews with newspapers and photographs after the fact, “John Chinaman”, as the Chinese were referred to as, was given very Continued
A Railroad Record That Defies Defeat: How Central Pacific laid ten miles of track in one day back in 1869 By ERLE HEATH, Associate Editor, Southern Pacific Bulletin, Vol. XVI, No. 5, May, 1928, pp. 3-5. FA L L 2 0 1 5
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