The Pacific Railway Survey

The Pacific Railroad surveys were some of the mostundertaken. The first followed the 35th parallel north
important railway surveys ever undertaken in Northfrom Oklahoma to Los Angeles; this route would be
America. Conducted from 1853 to 1855, the purpose ofsimilar to the later Santa Fe Railroad line and the
these surveys was to explore possible routes for theInterstate 40 highway. The second Southern Pacific
building of a transcontinental railroad, spanning theSurvey crossed Texas to San Diego, California. This
country from coast to coast. The discovery of goldroute would become Southern Pacific's second
and resulting rise in California's population beginning intranscontinental railway when it was completed in 1881.
the late 1840s made such a route essential in linking theThe final survey connected San Diego to Seattle for a
country together. Though Congress had deemed thiscoastal railway route.
project necessary, there was much debate overEach of the survey routes posed its own challenges
where it should be built, and which states it wouldfor the building of a railway. Obstacles included the
traverse.Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, as well as
In all, five separate surveys were conducted, eachthick growths of trees, rivers, and native tribes who
overseen by Jefferson Davis, then the Secretary ofwould be hostile to the building of a railroad over their
War, and conducted by the Corps of Topographicaltraditional lands. Even after the surveys were
Engineers, a group which had already participated incomplete, there was great question over the most
surveys of the U.S.-Mexico border among otherpractical route in terms of both length and expense.
important surveys in the American West.Eventually, the line included over eight thousand feet of
These surveys not only examined the land, but alsotunnels through the mountains, an impressive feat of
consisted of a substantial survey of natural history,surveying and engineering.
including geology, botany, and thousands of illustrationsBy the time the survey results were published in 1861,
of birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals, as well asthe country was embroiled in Civil War, drawing the
ethnographic descriptions of native tribes encounterednation's attention away from the railroad question and
by surveyors in the relatively unexplored West. Thesedriving up the price of the equipment and materials
reports show just how varied a surveyor's job in thisnecessary to build the rail line. Although the railway got
era could be.off to a slow start, in July of 1862 Abraham Lincoln
Each of the five surveys explored one possiblesigned the Pacific Railway Act, establishing the Union
east-west route for railways, beginning roughly at thePacific Railroad Company to build west from Omaha,
Mississippi River. The Northern Pacific survey wasNebraska, and the Central Pacific Railroad Company
conducted along the Missouri River and over theto build east from Sacramento, California. The
Northern Rockies, between the 47th and 49th northcompanies building these lines received 33 million free
parallels from St. Paul, Minnesota, all the way to theacres of land along the new railroad. Construction
Puget Sound. The Central Pacific survey wasbegan in 1863, with the two railways finally meeting
conducted between the 37th and 39th parallels north,each other in May of 1869 in Promontory, Utah. In all,
between St. Louis, Missouri and San Francisco,this transcontinental railroad spanned 1,774 miles, a
California, with a route following the Kansas androute which could be traveled in just over four days.
Arkansas Rivers. Two Southern Pacific Surveys were