(1869), railway lines connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific. The Pacific Railway Act (1862) authorized the Union Pacific Railroad Company to build a line westward from Omaha, Nebraska, and the Central Pacific Railway of California to build a connecting line eastward from Sacramento. The companies recruited armies of workers in what became a competition to put down the most track. The Central Pacific hired seven thousand Chinese immigrants at one dollar a day, and the Union Pacific hired Irish immigrants. Construction began in 1865, and after years of grueling labor and hardship, the two lines met on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Point, Utah. The Central Pacific had built 689 miles of track, much of it through the Sierra Nevadas, and the Union Pacific 1,086 miles. California governor Leland Stanford, who was also president of the Central Pacific, drove in the final "golden spike" connecting the two lines.
