Transcripts For CSPAN3 Promontory Summit 20160825

And because of that, they had saw mills and they would cut their ties, brought them down from the mountains. Pas the Union Pacific coming from the east had to hand cut their ties wherever they could find wood. Not a lot available in many of the areas so they would split them. You can see how they would cut them and bring them out when they could. The Transcontinental Railroad was happening at the end of the victorian age, as you were going into the industrial age. And it was a perfect time for the United States because when that Transcontinental Railroad was completed, it made a major impact in the Industrial Development of this nation. The complete construction took just over it was about six and a half years. So from 1862 to 1869. The time period before they started building the railroad would have been when a lot of people were coming out after the gold rush, silver rush was really taking off. We were also in the middle of the civil war when the act was signed to start this project. Abraham lincoln really wanted to have access to all the materials that were available in the sierra nevadas including the gold and silver and connect the new states that had just been made to the United States. So he chose that time to complete the act and finish, Start Building the Transcontinental Railroad. Obviously, in the middle of the war, defense of the country was a big kind of major factor that was making the decision, they wanted to be able to get troops across the country in a quicker period of time. They also wanted to cut the time of shipping goods. The goods made in the factories back east and the finished goods to go to the new states in the west. So four to six months around the horn, all the way down around south america, was hopefully going to be cut to about two weeks. That was abraham lincolns goal, to get troops across the country in two weeks. It ended up it was seven to ten days they were able to get things across the country once it was completed. The two companies that started building the Transcontinental Railroad were the Center Pacific Railroad Company and the Union Pacific company that started in omaha, nebraska. There were also extensive Railroad Systems back further east. One of the problems the whole time was the companies were building before they got paid. They were almost always in debt, also worried about money. The other problem was resources. I mean, huge problem with resources. If you ever traveled across wyoming and nebraska, theres not a lot of wood. If you look underneath the rails, wooden ties had to be placed all along the route just for the railroad. You also would have to build buildings for water towers or just for the infrastructure of operating the railroad all across the country. Another huge problem because of the civil war, they were in the civil war, was actually finding manpower to build the railroad. And the end of the civil war actually was a huge help for the Railroad Companies because you had all these veterans from the war looking for a way to provide for their lives and their livelihood and there was a ready employer in the Railroad Companies. Now, for the Central Pacific, this was even a bigger concern because a lot of times, especially early on in the building of the railroad, a lot of their workers would just come on long enough to obtain money to go and mine in the gold or the silver fields or mines. So thats actually why the chinese were eventually brought on as an experiment. They just brought on 50 Chinese Workers initially to test them out. There was a lot of doubts because of the stature, they didnt think they would be able to withstand the 10 to 12hour days six days a week. There wallace oza lot of criticism and i guess you could say racism against the chinese. Eventually, they overcame all those doubts and did a fantastic job. So well, in fact, over 11,000 chinese were employed by the end of the Transcontinental Railroad between the two companies. Both companies as they approached each other were being paid land grants and government bonds to build, and they didnt want to give up ground to each other. So instead of coming together and giving up and finding out where they would meet, they continued to build past one another and teuntil the governmt stepped in and said were not going to pay you anymore until you figure out where youre going to meet. Thats where were standing right beside, and it gave both companies 30 miles of tract they had to finish in the last month. So youre looking down over some of the wetlands of the great salt lake. Two major factors influenced the path across the whole route. One was finding fresh water available every 15 to 30 miles to refill the tanks that would supply the water for the boilers on the steam locomotives. Another thing is they needed to stay under the 2 grade, which is only 100 feet in elevation change every mile. As they were trying to find their way through utah, one of the challenges they faced is there was a large saltwater lake. Wouldnt allow any fresh water, but they had to find a path around it. And they were thinking about going right through the wetland area, but one of the engineers brought up what if the lake level rises. And so they decided to come up on the foothills north of the lake, even though that would present more challenges with the grading, but to stay away from the lake and prevent flooding and damaging of the actual railroad. Another thing you can see from this site is if you look down just below us, you can see the other grade. So i mentioned earlier that the two companies building across the country passed each other through utah with grade work because they didnt want to give up money that the federal government was providing. Down below is us the old Union Pacific grade which would have been abandoned earlier, just less than a year after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad when they sold their rights to the central Pacific Railroad company. Because the Central Pacific had worked through utah a lot longer, they had a much Higher Quality grade and so when they bought the rights from the Union Pacific, they switched over onto their grade. Thats where were standing, is on the original Central Pacific grade. Were coming up to the last cut that was made by the Union Pacific in their approach to Promontory Summit valley. In just a minute, well be able to look down and you can actually see in order to get through different elevation changes, they would cut through the rock. And blast with black powder, making these channels that they could actually build the railroad through. Now, the work youre actually seeing these berms or hills up on the far side of this cut is from the 1860s. This is actually rock that was stacked up, and you can actually see they even kind of put some bigger rocks to act as a wall retaining wall to keep that from collapsing down into the cut. And so pretty neat, you can see work that has lasted almost 150 years now. As they approached the actual ceremony and figured out the spot here at Promontory Summit, a lot of people were interested in knowing when they would complete and they actually had a lot of reporters from all over the kwucountry that came out wi the dignitaries from the two companies. A lot of individuals from other Railroad Companies that would connect to that main line and be able to benefit with their businesses from that. And the day that was set for the completion, when the federal government made these companies kind of set when they would finish and where, was may 8th. We hold our anniversary every year on may 10th. Thats because there was a delay in the Union Pacific getting out here. And so they were not able to hold the ceremony until that day. When they actually held the s ceremo ceremony, one of the neat parts of the story, they did have the ceremonial spikes which one of those gives us our name, golden spike historical site. They had four ceremonial stieks, a sauld olid gold, solid silver a silver and gold spike. Because they were precious metal, they couldnt drive the strikes. They would have to predrill holes and place the precious metal spikes. We dont know which position the gold spike would have held. They would have placed those in as part of the ceremony. The dignitaries placed them in and tapped them as part of the ceremony. They tapped those as part of the ceremony and then removed all that. There was a last spike that was driven. So when you hear the driving of the last spike, it wasnt the gold spike. It was a regular iron spike that was linked up to the telegraph. They tied the telegraph wires around the spike and the hammer and it sent a broadcast, live coverage across the country and actually started celebrations all throughout the nation. During the ceremony, one of the famous pictures that you often see is the sam pachampagne phot. For that photo, there were two locomotives on site. We have replicas of those engines that operate on a daily basis throughout the summer season. Those locomotives have become probably two of the most famous locomotives in american railroading. Being able to run those, let people see 1860s replicas on a daily basis is a cool way to commemorate that. After the ceremony, a lot of pictures were taken and the operation of the railroad became huge throughout the country. Because they were trying to increase time and efficiency within these companies themselves, eventually, the line that was passing through this area was bypassed. They built a trestle bridge and causeway across the salt lake from the nevada utah border straight across the point of the Promontory Mountains that are just behind us, straight into ogden. That cut about 80 miles of extra travel, time, money, all of that off the operation of that transcontinental line. Ogden became a huge hub for transferring troops and materials and supplies all across the country, and would just have trains every hour coming in just unloading huge amounts of supplies or people, and it became a major city. A major thoroughfare for moving across the country. American history tv is marking the centennial of the National Park service. We asked members of congress which National Park service site in your state has special meaning to you and why. The great Smoky Mountain National Park, because i grew up there. Because i lived there. And because i really love it. I mean, its the most visited National Park in the country. Most people dont know that. It has nearly 10 million visitors a year compared to the western parks that sometimes have 2, 3, 4 million. Has more trees. Different kinds of trees than all of europe put together. All sorts of wildlife. 80 years ago when it was formed, there were about 100 black bears. Now theres 1,600. 315 wild turkey, i see two dozen in my front yard. I like the fact that i can walk out of my house, walk about two miles to conservation property, and walk into the great smoky park, which includes the highest mountains in the eastern United States. I like the stories about the people who live there because unlike the western parks which were built out of land that the country already owned, great smokies were created in 1934 from land that North Carolina and tennessee gave to the country. And people were moved out of the park. And the park bought their land, so those of us who live around there feel like we own it because it used to be ours. So theres a sense of ownership about the smokies even though people come to the park from all over the country. More than any other park. Theres a special sense of ownership about the park there. Why is it important to preserve sites like this . Well, one is the wildlife. To be able to see two dozen turkeys walk through your front yard, to go from having like 20 wild whitetailed deer, which was the way it was 80 years ago to countless numbers today, thats one. To allow these great trees to grow back. Theyre mostly all logged in the 1930s, but now after 80 years, its such a lush area, so much rainfall, that theyre growing back. And then the family stories. The people who lived there. I remember in the 80s when i was governor, i took a walk through the park on the 50th birthday or 60th birthday, and i stopped to see a man who was then 95 years old. He had been blind for 20 years. He still was allowed to live in the park although it was created in the 1930s. And he was the last man who was allowed to live in the park. When he died, no other people lived in the park. He was very reclusive. A couple Supreme Court justices tried to see him, and he wouldnt see them. He allowed me to come in and i said something like, well, we havent had many governors from this part of the state. He said, well, we havent had many who didnt steal, either. Then he said that i hear nothing on you yet. One of the highlights for me was at the 50th anniversary of the park. Then at the 75th anniversary in 2009. They rolled a piano into caves cove, this beautiful area surrounded by 6,000foot mountains, and the knoxville tennessee siymphony came. On a sunday afternoon, i played the piano. The symphony played and we played Amazing Grace and the fiddles sounded like the old bagpipes that the scottish people used to bring into the mountains 200 years ago. So being able to do that on the 50th and the 75th anniversary in the park with thousands of people there listening was a big thrill for me. Join American History tv tonight, live at 7 00 p. M. Eastern time, to commemorate the National Park service centennial. 100 years ago, president Woodrow Wilson signed a bill creating the National Park service. Today, we look back on the past century of these caretakers of americas natural and historic treasures. At 7 00 p. M. Eastern, were live from the National Park services most visited historic home, arlington house, the robert e. Lee memorial. Join us with your phone calls as we talk with robert stanton, former National Park Service Director and brandon bys, the former arlington house site manager who will oversee the upcoming restoration of the mansion, headquarters, and grounds. Today, the 100th anniversary of the National Park service, live from arlington house at 7 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3. I think everybody is just amazed by its not a widely publicized presence. The park service doesnt advertise, so people find out about this because they read magazine articles or they see features like youre preparing. But its not our typical colorado scenery. Its not what most people think of when they think of colorado. So it comes as a pleasant surprise to folks to find it here. John otto was a kind of a vagabond, not in the sense that he was a ner do well, but he didnt have any permanent roots. He was attracted to this area around 1907. By the promise of employment on a water line project. And i guess this was just the type of country that was really appealing to him. So he began to agitate for the creation of a National Park here. The first thing he did was he wrote a lot of letters to prominent people and so on trying to get this established as a National Park. And he also constructed a lot of trails to afford access into the canyons and onto the rims of the monument. Im sure the local people came out on sunday afternoon, they would hitch up the wagon and come out for a picnic and so on. One of the other things he did is in 1926, he started collecting buffalo nickels from the kids in town and used that money to transport a couple bison here. He wanted to