after
the letting of the contracts to this new company, in 1866, over five
hundred miles of road were completed and in operation. An advertisement
published late in 1868 announced that "five hundred and forty miles
of the Union Pacific Railroad, running west from Omaha across the
continent, are now completed, the track being laid and trains running
within ten miles of the Rocky Mountains.... The prospect that the whole
grand line to the Pacific will be completed by 1870 was never better."

As a matter of fact, the line through to the coast was finished earlier
than had been predicted. One fact which increased the rapidity of
construction was the growing financial difficulty of the company. It was
absolutely imperative that the through line be completed in order that
the resulting business might make the operation of trains pay. But
aside from this, another influence was at work to encourage rapid
construction. The Act of 1862 provided that the Central Pacific might
also build across Nevada to meet the Union Pacific, on condition that
it completed its own allotted section first. As the Central Pacific
also was receiving a heavy government subsidy per mile, and as there was
great profit in construction undertaken with this government subsidy,
there was naturally a strong incentive for both companies to build all
the mileage possible and as rapidly as possible.

The Central Pacific enterprise was backed by a group of men who were
awake to the possibilities of the situation and who had made large
fortunes in the gold-mining boom of previous years, such as Leland
Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and the Crockers. The
rivalry between them and the Union Pacific interests woke the whole
continent and formed a chapter in American railroad history as startling
and romantic as anything in the stories of the Vanderbilts and Goulds
with their financial gymnastics.

As the contest proceeded, public interest increased and the entire
country watched to see which company would win the big government
subsidies through the mountains. Through the winter of 1868 the work
continued on the Union Pacific with unabated energy, and freezing
weather caught the builders at the base of the Wasatch Mountains;
but blizzards could not stop them. The workmen laid tracks across the
Wasatch on a bed of snow and ice, and one of the track-laying trains
slid bodily, track and all, off the ice into a stream. The two companies
had over twenty