Theodore Judah's Journey Before The Transcontinental Railroad

Before the transcontinental railroad their was not a quick way to go to the west coast from the east coast. If you wanted to go across the country it was a six month dangerous journey that had many obstacles like rivers, deserts, and mountains. Their was another way to get to the west coast and that would take six weeks sail around Cape Horn but this way was very expensive so America knew that they had to come up with some thing so people could travel from the east coast to the west coast quickly and not very expensive.

In 1845 Asa Whitey presented idea to congress of a railroad that would go to the pacific the was federal funded. Over the years the idea died untill Theodore Judah came along and he love the idea of the railroad. Theodore Judah was a civil engineer who help built first railroad in California. Congress survey some possible routes for the railroad but they didn't like any of the them but Judah came up with a route that congress liked the route was go through the sierra Nevada mountains. By 1861 Judah had a group of investors called the big four Collis Huntington his partner Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker and Leland Stanford . Then he headed to Washington to convince congressional leaders as well as President.
The two company the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad would be competing against each other. Central Pacific Railroad Company would start building in Sacramento going east into Nevada. The union pacific railroad company would start building by Iowa and Nebraska border moving west. Both company would meet up in the middle but didn't know where. Each company got 6 400 acres of land and 48 thousand in government bonds for each mile of track that was