It spread Anglo-European culture throughout the nation and caused trade to flourish, but the story of the Chinese workers who built the line has been largely forgotten.
"You can almost feel the pain it took," said Roland Hus, standing in the train tunnels along Donner Summit in California's Sierra Nevada mountains.
The jagged and bumpy walls of the tunnel hardly resemble subways created by modern machinery. Instead, in the 1860s, teams of Chinese laborers broke through granite and painstakingly hand-carved 15 shafts through the Sierra Nevada, so the first transcontinental railroad could carry passengers 1,800 miles from Sacramento, California to Omaha, Nebraska, cutting travel times from six months to just six days, and it will change a nation forever.
"Four men had to hold a large iron rod and drill a hole into the granite by hand," said Hus, director of research at Stanford's Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project (CRW NAP), which seeks to shed more light on the experiences of Chinese railroad workers. "The fifth man would pound it with a sledgehammer. Then they'd turn the rod a quarter turn and pound it again, and so on. That's how they'd drill a hole, then pack up the black powder, light it and run. No hydraulics."
This laborious construction process meant that workers cleared only inches per day; it took two and a half years to bore the nearly 1,700-foot tunnel at Donner Summit. Look closely, Hus said, and "you can still see the drilling marks."
This monumental feat of engineering had a huge impact on the US. This caused trade to flourish, and by 1880 the railroad was carrying $50 million worth of freight each year. As new towns grew up along the railroad, it changed where Americans lived, fueled westward expansion, and made travel more accessible. But the project also devastated forests, displaced many Native American tribes, and quickly spread Anglo-European influence across the country. And it came at a high cost: an estimated 1,200 Chinese workers died during the six-year construction, and those who survived were subjected to racial discrimination and threats.
Today, Amtrak's Zephyr train still struggles with the toughest parts made by Chinese workers more than 150 years ago. Climbing through the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the trip offers sweeping views of snow-capped peaks and belts of towering pines and firs. (The rest of the line, connecting the San Francisco Bay Area and Chicago, runs on a different route created after the original transcontinental railroad.)
It was the largest engineering enterprise of the 19th century.
It is also possible to take a closer look at the work of Chinese laborers on foot. Near the Tahoe National Forest, along Donner Pass Road, a plaque points to the "Great Wall of China," a 75-foot-long retaining wall that still holds the dirt above it firmly in place today, so landslides haven't buried the track. Called an "engineering marvel" by the Truckee-Donner Historical Society, which installed the plaque, the wall was built by Chinese "master builders" who made it by stacking stones one on top of the other without using cement or mortar.
Just above the wall is a section of railway that is no longer in use, but is accessible to intrepid hikers. The tracks have been removed, and the path is now unmarked. At an elevation of more than 7,000 feet, there is a scenic view of Donner Lake in the distance. It is here that hikers can walk through a series of tunnels, including the nearly 1,700-foot-long No. 6 Tunnel—the longest of the 15 tunnels cut through the mountains—along with snow shelters that were built to protect the tracks.
It is terrifying—and yes, painful—to stand at the entrance to one of the tunnels and see a small ray of sunlight at the other end, knowing not only how difficult it was to carve that opening, but also how poorly the Chinese workers were treated. At one point, in an effort to speed up construction, they worked around the clock, each crew shrouded in darkness for hours.
These structures now stand as a testament to their sweat and sacrifice. They also reflect a legacy that has long been erased from US history. But with the recent rise in anti-Asian hatred in the US, there has been a renewed push — including the establishment of the first national Asian-Pacific American museum and the passage of new laws in Illinois, New Jersey and other states to teach Asian-American and Pacific Islander history, to school-aged students – to recognize the role that Chinese workers played in the completion of such a monumental undertaking.
"It was the biggest engineering enterprise of the 19th century," said Connie Young IU, a historian whose great-grandfather was one of China's railroad workers. And to think that it would be the Chinese who would build the tracks that would connect the states by rail.
Chinese workers never intended to build America's greatest railroad. The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) and the Union Pacific Railroad were commissioned by Congress to build a railroad that would connect the country. However, the CPRR could not hire enough white workers at the time, as many of them had left for better paying opportunities in the mines.
In 1864, the CPRR began hiring Chinese laborers in a desperate bid to meet the deadline. Many of the first Chinese workers were already in California, drawn by the gold rush during the late 1840s and early 1850s. Even more were recruited from China with promises of steady work and pay. Eventually, an estimated 20,000 Chinese toiled on the railway, making up to 90% of the CPRR workforce, according to CRW NAP.
From the east, the Union Pacific Railroad began to be built westward. The CPRR portion of the project was undoubtedly more difficult because their tracks had to pass through the mighty Sierra Nevada Mountains—a mountain range that tops out at more than 14,000 feet—before joining the Union Pacific Railroad tracks.
Establishing this road meant clearing the brush, leveling the hill, and laying tracks, most of which was also done by Chinese laborers. They often worked 10- to 11-hour days, six days a week, and didn't stop even in the winter, when storms could dump several feet of snow a day. But despite their commitment, some were paid only half as much as white workers, according to CRW NAP. The CPRR also did not bother to track their identity, blithely referring to them as a mass of "John China men".
After the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, every effort was made to eradicate all people of Chinese descent from the United States through local and state laws, mob attacks, and lynchings. Some returned to China, although a small number were hired to maintain the railway. The rest tried to settle in places like Truckee, California, a major railroad town near Donner Summit. They established businesses such as laundromats and restaurants. At one point, Chinese immigrants made up as much as 30-40% of Truckee's population. But it soon became clear that they were not welcome.
In 1875, a fire burned Truckee's Chinatown. Although the origin of the fire was blamed on the Chinese and their wooden buildings, it soon became clear that these fires were not mere accidents. The Chinese community was forced to relocate to the other side of the Truckee River, where further fires would destroy their homes and businesses – repeatedly. In one particularly despicable act, several white men set fire to their homes and then shot the Chinese residents as they fled the flames. The perpetrators were caught and tried, but eventually acquitted.
Then came the Truckee Method, an effort by the town's white residents to boycott Chinese-owned businesses and all merchants who did business with members of the Chinese community. By the late 1880s, the Chinese community had dwindled to just a handful. Across the country, other Chinese communities were similarly driven out or destroyed. National anti-Chinese hatred fueled by fear of job competition and a sense of moral superiority over the Chinese came to a head in 1882 when Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred anyone of Chinese descent from entering the US. It was only revoked in 1943.
Today, the city of Truckee, along with the greater Lake Tahoe area, is a popular ski destination - Palisades Tahoe (formerly known as Squaw Valley), located just 10 miles south of Truckee, hosted the 1960 Winter Olympics. Sugar Bowl Resort, which served as the inspiration for Walt Disney's 1941 animated short, The Art of Skiing, he relies on tunnels built by Chinese workers.
Yet, for all its international attention, there are almost no signs that Chinese immigrants once had a significant presence in the region. Walking through downtown Truckee, the only hint of Chinese heritage is a plaque marking a brick building that once housed a Chinese herb store.
But the success of the transcontinental railroad and its harsh consequences should not be forgotten, IU says. "The fact that it happened, that it can happen again, and it happened again ... that's why we're still talking about it and why we can't stop."
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