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07/08/2005

The Transcontinental Railroad, Part IV

The following may seem a bit repetitive, given last week’s snow
tales and the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, but it
helps to reinforce just how difficult it was to build the stretch
over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, starting just 40-50 miles east
of Sacramento. So we continue, with David Haward Bain’s
“Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad”
as the source.

---

It’s June 1867, and the snow pack at 7,000 feet in the Sierra was
compacted with the melting and nightly refreezing. Avalanches
were a major concern. As was a lack of labor, for it seems the
Chinese had other work to attract them such as mining. Charley
Crocker, co-founder of the Central Pacific Railroad (CP), noted
“We have proved their value as laborers, & everybody is trying
Chinese & now we can’t get them.”

Crocker had raised the monthly wages from $31 to $35 in the
spring and the CP was looking for new workers as the ships
came in from Canton.

But on June 25, 1867, laborers suddenly threw down their picks
and shovels and went back to camp. Construction Chief
Strobridge, a most intimidating sort, couldn’t get them to return.
Now the Chinese wanted $40 per month and their day shortened
from eleven to ten hours. Said Crocker’s brother E.B., “This
strike of the chinamen is the hardest blow we have had here. If
we get over this without yielding, it will be all right hereafter.”

Charley Crocker confronted the labor leaders and told them he
wouldn’t pay a cent over $35. But the chinamen didn’t budge.
The Central Pacific began to think about looking east for
workers. Then management came up with a solution. Stop
providing food. E.B. Crocker noted:

“ they really began to suffer. None of us went near them for a
week Then Charles went up, & they gathered around him - &
he told them that he would not be dictated to – that he made the
rules for them & not they for him. That if they went to work
immediately they would remit the fines usually retained out of
their wages when they did not work, but if they refused, he
would pay them nothing for June.”

With the evil-looking, eye-patched Jim Strobridge by Crocker’s
side, some armed men and a mob of whites, the hungry workers
were, in the words of E.B. Crocker, “glad to go to work again.”

---

December 1867. David Haward Bain writes:

“On Monday, December 16, rain began to pour down on
Sacramento. On the summit it took the form of the snowfall that
would stop them in the Sierra for the winter. Charley Crocker,
up there to distribute the payroll, telegraphed that six feet had
fallen and was ‘too deep to handle.’”

But the snowplows were able to keep the road open and the
Crockers et al became way too optimistic about the prospects for
the winter. They were wrong. CP carpenter A.P. Partridge
recalled that soon 4,000 laborers were moved into camps from
the stormy upper slopes.

“Most of the Chinese came to Truckee and they filled up all the
old buildings and sheds .With the heavy fall of snow the old
barn collapsed and killed four Chinese. A good many were
frozen to death. There was a dance at Donner Lake at a hotel,
and a sleigh load of us went up from Truckee and on our return,
about 9 A.M. next morning, we saw something under a tree by
the side of the road, its shape resembling that of a man. We
stopped and found a frozen Chinese. As a consequence, we
threw him in the sleigh with the rest of us, and took him into
town and laid him out by the side of a shed and covered him with
a rice mat.”

---

March 1868. David Haward Bain:

“Five feet of snow already stood in Cisco, but then in three days
another thirteen feet fell .Train service had halted below Cisco
at Blue Canyon (roughly 50 miles from Sacramento on present-
day Route 80), but the giant snowplow, eight engines, and three
hundred men cleared upward to Emigrant Gap, hoping to meet an
equally large force working downward from Cisco.”

This particular storm was so bad, Charley Crocker himself,
stranded in Cisco, used snowshoes to get to Emigrant Gap, where
he caught a train and returned to Sacramento with bad news.
“There is no place between Cisco & Cold Stream Gap with less
than fifteen feet of snow lying on the track & line of
uncompleted work,” he reported on March 29. Some places had
between 50 and 100 feet drifts. Of course more avalanches
delayed work further.

---

April 1868. After four feet fell on April 10, more workers were
sought to clear the area up near the summit. But now, as the
days were lengthening, there was a new, cruel problem
confronting them. The sunlight reflecting off the mountainsides
was blinding, so E.B. Crocker sought to buy up all the cheap
goggles.

---

May 1868. The snow on the western slope of the Sierra
measured 7 to 12 feet deep and was solid ice. On the other side
workers faced a crushing task. David Haward Bain:

“On the eastern slope at the Cold Stream gap, the snow was so
much deeper and so compacted that the workers had to cut in
large, descending steps, or benches, down toward where the
tracks would be. The deeper the gangs dug, the more snow had
to be flung upward to the next higher bench and thenceforth up
to the next – ‘in some places six times over from bench to
bench,’ Hopkins said, ‘to get it up to the top of the snow cut &
out of the way.’ Leland Stanford would recall there were places
where a snowfall of 63 feet ‘was pressed down, perhaps, into not
more than 18 feet, but packed as hard as ice, and requiring the
pick and powder to make a passage.’

---

Meanwhile, the Union Pacific Railroad had a few weather issues
of its own as it made its way across the Rockies. A Blizzard
covered most of Wyoming in February 1868, blocking some
ninety miles of track for three weeks. [Present-day Route 80,
between Laramie and Rawlins.] Hundreds were stranded on
stalled trains. One man noted the difficulty of clearing the
drifting snow.

“You can’t get trains over this division by sending a snow outfit
ahead with provisions .as soon as you get through a cut have
train follow. Have seen a cut fill up in two hours that took one
hundred men ten hours to shovel out.”

Laramie filled up with those stranded, and at Rawlins two
hundred on one train were stuck at the station. David Haward
Bain writes:

“Food and water soon ran short. The station restaurant and other
establishments in the raw, windswept hamlet took advantage of
the situation, charging exorbitant prices, such as $1.50 for a piece
of bread and molasses. The train crew consoled themselves with
whiskey and refused to stir.”

It took ten days before the crew attempted to press on, but only
when the passengers agreed to clear a drift a thousand feet long.
“But when that was open the engineer had only enough steam to
carry them into the deepest part of the drift, where the
locomotive stalled again. A telegram from divisional
headquarters to Rawlins forbade any further sorties. At this point
the crew went on a two-day drunk. About fifty passengers then
left on foot for Laramie. They arrived there in four days after
terrible suffering.” [David Haward Bain]

---

Well, you get the picture by now. Next week the two sides
finally hook up. [Or maybe we take a detour? Like the story of
Donner Pass.]

Brian Trumbore



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Wall Street History

07/08/2005

The Transcontinental Railroad, Part IV

The following may seem a bit repetitive, given last week’s snow
tales and the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, but it
helps to reinforce just how difficult it was to build the stretch
over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, starting just 40-50 miles east
of Sacramento. So we continue, with David Haward Bain’s
“Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad”
as the source.

---

It’s June 1867, and the snow pack at 7,000 feet in the Sierra was
compacted with the melting and nightly refreezing. Avalanches
were a major concern. As was a lack of labor, for it seems the
Chinese had other work to attract them such as mining. Charley
Crocker, co-founder of the Central Pacific Railroad (CP), noted
“We have proved their value as laborers, & everybody is trying
Chinese & now we can’t get them.”

Crocker had raised the monthly wages from $31 to $35 in the
spring and the CP was looking for new workers as the ships
came in from Canton.

But on June 25, 1867, laborers suddenly threw down their picks
and shovels and went back to camp. Construction Chief
Strobridge, a most intimidating sort, couldn’t get them to return.
Now the Chinese wanted $40 per month and their day shortened
from eleven to ten hours. Said Crocker’s brother E.B., “This
strike of the chinamen is the hardest blow we have had here. If
we get over this without yielding, it will be all right hereafter.”

Charley Crocker confronted the labor leaders and told them he
wouldn’t pay a cent over $35. But the chinamen didn’t budge.
The Central Pacific began to think about looking east for
workers. Then management came up with a solution. Stop
providing food. E.B. Crocker noted:

“ they really began to suffer. None of us went near them for a
week Then Charles went up, & they gathered around him - &
he told them that he would not be dictated to – that he made the
rules for them & not they for him. That if they went to work
immediately they would remit the fines usually retained out of
their wages when they did not work, but if they refused, he
would pay them nothing for June.”

With the evil-looking, eye-patched Jim Strobridge by Crocker’s
side, some armed men and a mob of whites, the hungry workers
were, in the words of E.B. Crocker, “glad to go to work again.”

---

December 1867. David Haward Bain writes:

“On Monday, December 16, rain began to pour down on
Sacramento. On the summit it took the form of the snowfall that
would stop them in the Sierra for the winter. Charley Crocker,
up there to distribute the payroll, telegraphed that six feet had
fallen and was ‘too deep to handle.’”

But the snowplows were able to keep the road open and the
Crockers et al became way too optimistic about the prospects for
the winter. They were wrong. CP carpenter A.P. Partridge
recalled that soon 4,000 laborers were moved into camps from
the stormy upper slopes.

“Most of the Chinese came to Truckee and they filled up all the
old buildings and sheds .With the heavy fall of snow the old
barn collapsed and killed four Chinese. A good many were
frozen to death. There was a dance at Donner Lake at a hotel,
and a sleigh load of us went up from Truckee and on our return,
about 9 A.M. next morning, we saw something under a tree by
the side of the road, its shape resembling that of a man. We
stopped and found a frozen Chinese. As a consequence, we
threw him in the sleigh with the rest of us, and took him into
town and laid him out by the side of a shed and covered him with
a rice mat.”

---

March 1868. David Haward Bain:

“Five feet of snow already stood in Cisco, but then in three days
another thirteen feet fell .Train service had halted below Cisco
at Blue Canyon (roughly 50 miles from Sacramento on present-
day Route 80), but the giant snowplow, eight engines, and three
hundred men cleared upward to Emigrant Gap, hoping to meet an
equally large force working downward from Cisco.”

This particular storm was so bad, Charley Crocker himself,
stranded in Cisco, used snowshoes to get to Emigrant Gap, where
he caught a train and returned to Sacramento with bad news.
“There is no place between Cisco & Cold Stream Gap with less
than fifteen feet of snow lying on the track & line of
uncompleted work,” he reported on March 29. Some places had
between 50 and 100 feet drifts. Of course more avalanches
delayed work further.

---

April 1868. After four feet fell on April 10, more workers were
sought to clear the area up near the summit. But now, as the
days were lengthening, there was a new, cruel problem
confronting them. The sunlight reflecting off the mountainsides
was blinding, so E.B. Crocker sought to buy up all the cheap
goggles.

---

May 1868. The snow on the western slope of the Sierra
measured 7 to 12 feet deep and was solid ice. On the other side
workers faced a crushing task. David Haward Bain:

“On the eastern slope at the Cold Stream gap, the snow was so
much deeper and so compacted that the workers had to cut in
large, descending steps, or benches, down toward where the
tracks would be. The deeper the gangs dug, the more snow had
to be flung upward to the next higher bench and thenceforth up
to the next – ‘in some places six times over from bench to
bench,’ Hopkins said, ‘to get it up to the top of the snow cut &
out of the way.’ Leland Stanford would recall there were places
where a snowfall of 63 feet ‘was pressed down, perhaps, into not
more than 18 feet, but packed as hard as ice, and requiring the
pick and powder to make a passage.’

---

Meanwhile, the Union Pacific Railroad had a few weather issues
of its own as it made its way across the Rockies. A Blizzard
covered most of Wyoming in February 1868, blocking some
ninety miles of track for three weeks. [Present-day Route 80,
between Laramie and Rawlins.] Hundreds were stranded on
stalled trains. One man noted the difficulty of clearing the
drifting snow.

“You can’t get trains over this division by sending a snow outfit
ahead with provisions .as soon as you get through a cut have
train follow. Have seen a cut fill up in two hours that took one
hundred men ten hours to shovel out.”

Laramie filled up with those stranded, and at Rawlins two
hundred on one train were stuck at the station. David Haward
Bain writes:

“Food and water soon ran short. The station restaurant and other
establishments in the raw, windswept hamlet took advantage of
the situation, charging exorbitant prices, such as $1.50 for a piece
of bread and molasses. The train crew consoled themselves with
whiskey and refused to stir.”

It took ten days before the crew attempted to press on, but only
when the passengers agreed to clear a drift a thousand feet long.
“But when that was open the engineer had only enough steam to
carry them into the deepest part of the drift, where the
locomotive stalled again. A telegram from divisional
headquarters to Rawlins forbade any further sorties. At this point
the crew went on a two-day drunk. About fifty passengers then
left on foot for Laramie. They arrived there in four days after
terrible suffering.” [David Haward Bain]

---

Well, you get the picture by now. Next week the two sides
finally hook up. [Or maybe we take a detour? Like the story of
Donner Pass.]

Brian Trumbore