The new terminus opened on November 8, later deemed to be two days after the official "completion date" of the Pacific Railroad. [citation needed], "Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s first postwar command (Military Division of the Mississippi) covered the territory west of the Mississippi and east of the Rocky Mountains, and his top priority was to protect the construction of the railroads. The event was celebrated across the nation. The majority of the Union Pacific track across the Nebraska and Wyoming territories was built by veterans of the Union and Confederate armies, as well as many recent immigrants. Durant later left the Union Pacific and a new rail baron, Jay Gould, became the dominant stockholder. Then he circulated rumors that the CR&M had plans to connect to the Union Pacific, at which point he began buying back the M&M stock at depressed prices. [61] The new route surveyed across Wyoming was over 150 miles (240 km) shorter, had a flatter profile, allowing for cheaper and easier railroad construction, and also went closer by Denver and the known coalfields in the Wasatch and Laramie Ranges. The Union Pacific was so slow in beginning construction during 1865 that they sold two of the four steam locomotives they had purchased. This gave them a head start on getting to the "easy" miles across Nevada. In 1869, the Kansas Pacific Railway started building the Hannibal Bridge, a swing bridge across the Missouri River between Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas which connected railroads on both sides of the Missouri while still allowing passage of paddle steamers on the river. [3][4][5][N 1] The Western Pacific Railroad Company built 132 mi (212 km) of track from the road's western terminus at Alameda/Oakland to Sacramento, California. ", "Report of the Select Committee on the Pacific Railroad and Telegraph", "PBS American Experience – Transcontinental Railroad – Whitney Biography", "Thomas Clark Durant - American Experience - Official Site - PBS", "An Act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean, and to secure to the government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes, "Financing the Transcontinental Railroad", "PBS American Experience – Transcontinental Railroad – Durant Biography", Lewis Metzler Clement: A Pioneer of the Central Pacific Railroad, "Chinese Laborers and the Construction of the Central Pacific", Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad, "Sun Pictures of Rocky Mountain Scenery, Photographic Collection", "PBS – General Article: Workers of the Central Pacific Railroad", "CPRR Summit Tunnel (#6), Tunnels #7 & #8, Snowsheds, "Chinese" Walls, Donner Trail, and Dutch Flat Donner - Lake Wagon Road at Donner Pass", "Period construction images of snowsheds at Cisco and Donner Summit", "People & Events: Thomas Clark Durant (1820–1885)", "Where the Buffalo No Longer Roamed: The Transcontinental Railroad connected East and West—and accelerated the destruction of what had been in the center of North America", "See the "Lost" Golden Spike at the Museum", "People & Events: Oakes Ames (1804–1873) – American Experience Transcontinental Railroad", "Everlasting Steam: The Story of Jupiter and No. While there was a large network of railways built in the Eastern part of the country in the 1830s and ’40s, there were few in the West and none that connected with Eastern lines. 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