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Pacific Railroad Act of 1862; Long title: An Act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean, and to secure to the government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes: Enacted by: the 37th United States Congress: Citations; Statutes at Large: 12 Stat. 489 ...
This legislation formed the basis of the Pacific Railway Acts enacted in 1862, which granted a charter to the Union Pacific Railroad Company to construct the first transcontinental railroad in the United States and to provide federal support in the form of land grants and bond subsidies.
The Pacific Railway Act of 1863 established the standard gauge for the first transcontinental railroad. Except for the narrow gauge, gauges were standardized across North America after the end of the Civil War in 1865. [100]: 43, 63–82
Congress passed the first of the Pacific Railroad Acts and the major Homestead Act in 1862. The Central Pacific Railroad then broke ground on January 8, 1863. Though the last spike would not be driven into the transcontinental railroad until 1869, the second transatlantic telegraph cable was completed the year the Civil War ended.
The original company, Union Pacific Rail Road (UPRR), was created and funded by the federal government by Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862 and 1864. The laws were passed as war measures to forge closer ties with California and Oregon, which otherwise took six months to reach.
America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route") was a 1,911-mile (3,075 km) continuous railroad line built between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa, with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. [1]
July 1, 1862: President Lincoln signs the Pacific Railway Act, which authorized the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific to build a railroad to the Pacific Ocean. [42] 1863. January 8, 1863: Ground-breaking ceremonies take place at Sacramento, California, at the foot of "K" Street at the waterfront of the Sacramento River. [43]
The Kansas Pacific began in 1855 as the Leavenworth, Pawnee and Western Railroad, and was later reorganized in 1863 as the Union Pacific Eastern Division. The UP Eastern was authorized by the United States Congress as part of the Pacific Railway Act, in order to create a second southerly branch of the transcontinental railroad, alongside the ...