Editing First transcontinental railroad (section)

==Construction==
[[File:First Transcontinental Rail.jpg|thumb|left|The ''Jupiter'', which carried [[Leland Stanford]] (one of the "Big Four" owners of the Central Pacific) and other railway officials to the Last Spike Ceremony]]

Most of the capital investment needed to build the railroad was generated by selling government-guaranteed bonds (granted per mile of completed track) to interested investors. The Federal donation of right-of-way saved money and time as it did not have to be purchased from others. The financial incentives and bonds would hopefully cover most of the initial capital investment needed to build the railroad. The bonds would be paid back by the sale of government-granted land, as well as prospective passenger and freight income. Most of the engineers and surveyors who figured out how and where to build the railroad on the Union Pacific were engineering college trained. Many of Union Pacific engineers and surveyors were [[Union Army]] veterans (including two generals) who had learned their railroad trade keeping the trains running and tracks maintained during the U.S. Civil War. After securing the finances and selecting the engineering team, the next step was to hire the key personnel and prospective supervisors. Nearly all key workers and supervisors were hired because they had previous railroad on-the-job training, knew what needed to be done and how to direct workers to get it done. After the key personnel were hired, the semi-skilled jobs could be filled if there was available labor. The engineering team's main job was to tell the workers where to go, what to do, how to do it, and provide the construction material they would need to get it done.

Survey teams were put out to produce detailed contour maps of the options on the different routes. The engineering team looked at the available surveys and chose what was the "best" route. Survey teams under the direction of the engineers closely led the work crews and marked where and by how much hills would have to be cut and depressions filled or bridged. Coordinators made sure that construction and other supplies were provided when and where needed, and additional supplies were ordered as the railroad construction consumed the supplies. Specialized bridging, explosive and tunneling teams were assigned to their specialized jobs. Some jobs like explosive work, tunneling, bridging, heavy cuts or fills were known to take longer than others, so the specialized teams were sent out ahead by wagon trains with the supplies and men to get these jobs done by the time the regular track-laying crews arrived. Finance officers made sure the supplies were paid for and men paid for their work. An army of men had to be coordinated and a seemingly never-ending chain of supplies had to be provided. The Central Pacific road crew set a track-laying record by laying {{convert|10|mi|abbr=on}} of track in a single day, commemorating the event with a signpost beside the track for passing trains to see.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/tcrr-cprr/|title=PBS – General Article: Workers of the Central Pacific Railroad|website=[[PBS]]|access-date=August 27, 2017|archive-date=March 18, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170318015825/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/tcrr-cprr/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In addition to the track-laying crews, other crews were busy setting up stations with provisions for loading fuel, water and often also mail, passengers and freight. Personnel had to be hired to run these stations. Maintenance depots had to be built to keep all of the equipment repaired and operational. Telegraph operators had to be hired to man each station to keep track of where the trains were so that trains could run in each direction on the available single track without interference or accidents. Sidings had to be built to allow trains to pass. Provision had to be made to store and continually pay for coal or wood needed to run the [[steam locomotive]]s. Water towers had to be built for refilling the water tanks on the engines, and provision made to keep them full.

===Labor===
The majority of the Union Pacific track across the Nebraska and Wyoming territories was built by veterans of the Union and [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] armies, as well as many recent immigrants. [[Brigham Young]], President of [[the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]], landed contracts with the Union Pacific that offered jobs for around 2,000 members of the church with the hope that the railroad would support commerce in Utah. Church members built most of the road through Utah.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Arrington |first=Leonard J. |title=Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-0252072833 |edition=New |location=Urbana |page=261 |lccn=2004015281 |quote=Under the terms of the contract the Mormons were to do all the grading, tunneling, and bridge masonry on the U. P. line for the 150-odd miles from the head of Echo Canyon through Weber Canyon to the shores of the Great Salt Lake. |author-link=Leonard J. Arrington}}</ref> Construction superintendent Durant repeatedly failed to pay the wages agreed upon. The Union Pacific train carrying him to the final spike ceremony was held up by a strike by unpaid workers in [[Piedmont, Wyoming]], until he paid them for their work. Representatives of Brigham Young had less success, and failed in court to force him to honor the contract.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Allen |first1=James B. |title=[[The Story of the Latter-day Saints]] |last2=Glen M. Leonard |publisher=Deseret Book Company |year=1976 |location=Salt Lake City, Utah |pages=328–329 |author-link=James B. Allen (historian)}}</ref>

[[File:Chinese railroad workers sierra nevada.jpg|thumb|right|Chinese railroad workers greet a train on a snowy day.]]
The manual labor to build the Central Pacific's roadbed, bridges and tunnels was done primarily by many thousands of [[19th-century Chinese immigration to America|emigrant workers from China]] under the direction of skilled non-Chinese supervisors. The Chinese were commonly referred to at the time as "[[Celestial Empire|Celestials]]" and China as the "Celestial Kingdom". Labor-saving devices in those days consisted primarily of [[wheelbarrow]]s, horse or mule pulled carts, and a few railroad pulled gondolas. The construction work involved an immense amount of manual labor. Initially, Central Pacific had a hard time hiring and keeping unskilled workers on its line, as many would leave for the prospect of far more lucrative gold or silver mining options elsewhere. Despite the concerns expressed by [[Charles Crocker]], one of the "big four" and a general contractor, that the Chinese were too small in stature<ref>Ambrose, p. 148.</ref> and lacking previous experience with railroad work, they decided to try them anyway.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Griswold |first=Wesley |title=A Work of Giants |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=1962 |location=New York |pages=109–111}}</ref> After the first few days of trial with a few workers, with noticeably positive results, Crocker decided to hire as many as he could, looking primarily at the California labor force, where the majority of Chinese worked as independent gold miners or in the service industries (e.g.: laundries and kitchens). Most of these Chinese workers were represented by a Chinese "boss" who translated, collected salaries for his crew, kept discipline and relayed orders from an American general supervisor. Most Chinese workers spoke only rudimentary or no English, and the supervisors typically only learned rudimentary Chinese. Many more workers were imported from the [[Guangdong]] Province of China, which at the time, beside great poverty, suffered from the violence of the [[Taiping Rebellion]]. Most Chinese workers were planning on returning with their newfound "wealth" when the work was completed. Most of the men received between one and three dollars per day, the same as unskilled white workers; but the workers imported directly from China sometimes received less. A diligent worker could save over $20 per month after paying for food and lodging—a "fortune" by Chinese standards. A snapshot of workers in late 1865 showed about 3,000 Chinese and 1,700 white workers employed on the railroad. Nearly all of the white workers were in supervisory or skilled craft positions and made more money than the Chinese.

Most of the early work on the Central Pacific consisted of constructing the railroad track bed, cutting and/or blasting through or around hills, filling in washes, building bridges or trestles, digging and blasting tunnels and then laying the rails over the Sierra Nevada mountains. Once the Central Pacific was out of the Sierras and the Carson Range, progress sped up considerably as the railroad bed could be built over nearly flat ground. In those days, the Central Pacific once did a section of {{convert|10|mi|km}} of track in one day as a "demonstration" of what they could do on flat ground like most of the Union Pacific had in Wyoming and Nebraska.

The track laying was divided up into various parts. In advance of the track layers, surveyors consulting with engineers determined where the track would go. Workers then built and prepared the roadbed, dug or blasted through hills, filled in washes, built trestles, bridges or culverts across streams or valleys, made tunnels if needed, and laid the ties. The actual track-laying gang would then lay rails on the previously laid ties positioned on the roadbed, drive the spikes, and bolt the [[fishplate]] bars to each rail. At the same time, another gang would distribute telegraph poles and wire along the grade, while the cooks prepared dinner and the clerks busied themselves with accounts, records, using the telegraph line to relay requests for more materials and supplies or communicate with supervisors. Usually the workers lived in camps built near their work site. Supplies were ordered by the engineers and hauled by rail, possibly then to be loaded on wagons if they were needed ahead of the railhead. Camps were moved when the railhead moved a significant distance. Later, as the railroad started moving long distances every few days, some railroad cars had [[bunkhouse]]s built in them that moved with the workers—the Union Pacific had used this technique since 1866.<ref name="nps.gov">{{Cite web |date=1868-11-09 |title=Alta California (San Francisco) |url=http://www.nps.gov/archive/gosp/research/track_laying.html}}</ref> Almost all of the roadbed work had to be done manually, using shovels, picks, axes, two-wheeled dump carts, wheelbarrows, ropes, scrapers, etc., with initially only black powder available for blasting. Carts pulled by mules, and horses were about the only labor-saving devices available then. Lumber and ties were usually provided by independent contractors who cut, hauled and sawed the timber as required.

[[File:CPRR Tunnel No. 3 East Portal @ Cisco, CA.jpg|left|thumb|CPRR Tunnel#3 near [[Cisco, California]] (MP 180.1) opened in 1866 and remains in daily use today.]]
Tunnels were blasted through hard rock by drilling holes in the rock face by hand and filling them with black powder. Sometimes cracks were found which could be filled with powder and blasted loose. The loosened rock would be collected and hauled out of the tunnel for use in a fill area or as roadbed, or else dumped over the side as waste. A foot or so advance on a tunnel face was a typical day's work. Some tunnels took almost a year to finish and the Summit Tunnel, the longest, took almost two years. In the final days of working in the Sierras, the recently invented [[nitroglycerin]] explosive was introduced and used on the last tunnels including Summit Tunnel.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kraus |title=High Road to Promontory |page=110}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Howard |first=Robert West |title=The Great Iron Trail: The Story of the First Transcontinental Railroad |publisher=G. P. Putnam's Sons |year=1962 |location=New York |page=231}}</ref>

Supply trains carried all the necessary material for the construction up to the railhead, with mule or horse-drawn wagons carrying it the rest of the ways if required. Ties were typically unloaded from horse-drawn or mule-drawn wagons and then placed on the [[track ballast]] and leveled to get ready for the rails. Rails, which weighed the most, were often kicked off the flatcars and carried by gangs of men on each side of the rail to where needed. The rails just in front of the rail car would be placed first, measured for the correct gauge with gauge sticks and then nailed down on the ties with [[spike maul]]s. The fishplates connecting the ends of the rails would be bolted on and then the car pushed by hand to the end of the rail and rail installation repeated.

Track ballast was put between the ties as they progressed. Where a proper railbed had already been prepared, the work progressed rapidly. Constantly needed supplies included "food, water, ties, rails, spikes, fishplates, nuts and bolts, track ballast, telegraph poles, wire, firewood (or coal on the Union Pacific) and water for the steam train locomotives, etc."<ref name="nps.gov" /> After a flatcar was unloaded, it would usually be hooked to a small locomotive and pulled back to a siding, so another flatcar with rails etc. could be advanced to the railhead. Since juggling railroad cars took time on flat ground, where wagon transport was easier, the rail cars would be brought to the end of the line by steam locomotive, unloaded, and the flat car returned immediately to a siding for another loaded car of either ballast or rails. Temporary sidings were often installed where it could be easily done to expedite getting needed supplies to the railhead.

The railroad tracks, spikes, telegraph wire, locomotives, railroad cars, supplies etc. were imported from the east on sailing ships that sailed the nearly {{convert|18000|mi|km|adj=on}}, 200-day trip around [[Cape Horn]]. Some freight was put on [[Clipper ship]]s which could do the trip in about 120 days. Some passengers and high-priority freight were shipped over the newly completed (as of 1855) [[Panama Railroad]] across the [[Isthmus of Panama]]. Using [[paddle steamer]]s to and from Panama, this shortcut could be traveled in as little as 40 days. Supplies were normally offloaded at the [[Sacramento, California]], docks where the railroad started.

===Central Pacific construction===
On January 8, 1863, Governor [[Leland Stanford]] ceremonially broke ground in Sacramento, California, to begin construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. After great initial progress along the Sacramento Valley, construction was slowed, first by the foothills of the [[Sierra Nevada (U.S.)|Sierra Nevada]], then by cutting a railroad bed up the mountains themselves. As they progressed higher in the mountains, winter snowstorms and a shortage of reliable labor compounded the problems. On January 7, 1865, a want ad for 5,000 laborers was placed in the Sacramento Union.<ref name="dobie">{{cite book |last1=Dobie |first1=Charles Caldwell |title=San Francisco's Chinatown; Chapter IV: Railroad Building |date=1936 |publisher=Appleton-Century Co |location=New York |pages=71–72}}</ref> Consequently, after a trial crew of [[Chinese Railroad Workers|Chinese]] workers was hired and found to work successfully, the Central Pacific expanded its efforts to hire more emigrant laborers—mostly Chinese. Emigrants from poverty stricken regions of China, many of which suffered from the strife of the [[Taiping Rebellion]], seemed to be more willing to tolerate the living and working conditions on the railroad construction, and progress on the railroad continued. The increasing necessity for tunneling as they proceeded up the mountains then began to slow progress of the line yet again.

[[File:CPRR Donner Summit Tunnel Hand Drilled Granite 1868.jpg|thumb|left|Example of hand-drilled granite from within Tunnel#6, the "Summit Tunnel"]]
The first step of construction was to survey the route and determine the locations where large excavations, tunnels and bridges would be needed. Crews could then start work in advance of the railroad reaching these locations. Supplies and workers were brought up to the work locations by wagon teams and work on several different sections proceeded simultaneously. One advantage of working on tunnels in winter was that tunnel work could often proceed since the work was nearly all "inside". Living quarters would have to be built outside and getting new supplies was difficult. Working and living in winter in the presence of snow slides and avalanches caused some deaths.<ref>Ambrose, Nothing Like It in the World, pp. 160, 201.</ref>

To carve a tunnel, one worker held a rock drill on the granite face while one to two other workers swung eighteen-pound sledgehammers to sequentially hit the drill which slowly advanced into the rock. Once the hole was about {{convert|10|in|cm}} deep, it would be filled with black powder, a fuse set and then ignited from a safe distance. Nitroglycerin, which had been invented less than two decades before the construction of the first transcontinental railroad, was used in relatively large quantities during its construction. This was especially true on the Central Pacific Railroad, which owned its own nitroglycerin plant to ensure it had a steady supply of the volatile explosive.<ref>Howard, Robert ''The Great Iron Trail.'' New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1962. pg. 222</ref> This plant was operated by Chinese laborers as they were willing workers even under the most trying and dangerous of conditions.<ref>Howard, Robert ''The Great Iron Trail.'' New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1962. pg.222</ref>

Chinese laborers were also crucial in the construction of 15 tunnels along the railroad's line through the Sierra Nevada mountains. These were about {{convert|32|ft|m}} high and {{convert|16|ft|m}} wide.<ref name="Tzu-Kuei p. 128">Tzu-Kuei, "Chinese Workers and the First Transcontinental Railroad of the United States of America", p. 128.</ref> When tunnels with vertical shafts were dug to increase construction speed, tunneling began in the middle of the tunnel and at both ends simultaneously. At first hand-powered [[derrick]]s were used to help remove loose rocks up the vertical shafts. These derricks were later replaced with steam hoists as work progressed. By using vertical shafts, four faces of the tunnel could be worked at the same time, two in the middle and one at each end. The average daily progress in some tunnels was only {{convert|0.85|ft|cm}} a day per face, which was very slow,<ref name="Tzu-Kuei p. 128"/> or {{convert|1.18|ft|cm}} daily according to historian George Kraus.{{r|"Kraus Chinese 1969"|p=49}} J. O. Wilder, a Central Pacific-Southern Pacific employee, commented that "The Chinese were as steady, hard-working a set of men as could be found. With the exception of a few whites at the west end of Tunnel No. 6, the laboring force was entirely composed of Chinamen with white foremen and a "boss/translator". A single foreman (often Irish) with a gang of 30 to 40 Chinese men generally constituted the force at work at each end of a tunnel; of these, 12 to 15 men worked on the heading, and the rest on the bottom, removing blasted material. When a gang was small or the men were needed elsewhere, the bottoms were worked with fewer men or stopped so as to keep the headings going."{{r|"Kraus Chinese 1969"|p=49}} The laborers usually worked three shifts of 8 hours each per day, while the foremen worked in two shifts of 12 hours each, managing the laborers.<ref>John R. Gillis, [http://cprr.org/Museum/Tunnels.html "Tunnels of the Pacific Railroad."] Van ''Nostrand's Eclectic Engineering Magazine'', January 5, 1870, pp. 418–423.</ref> Once out of the Sierra, construction was much easier and faster. Under the direction of construction superintendent James Harvey Strobridge,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~npmelton/genealogy/alam-str.htm |title=James Harvey Strobridge |website=freepages.rootsweb.com |access-date=February 28, 2021}}</ref> Central Pacific track-laying crews set a record with {{convert|10|mi|56|ft}} of track laid in one day on April 28, 1869. Horace Hamilton Minkler, track foreman for the Central Pacific, laid the last rail and tie before the Last Spike was driven.

[[File:CPRR Snow Gallery at Crested Peak C.E. Watkins No. 252 1868.jpg|thumb|right|CPRR snow galleries allowed construction to continue in heavy snow (1868).]]In order to keep the CPRR's Sierra grade open during the winter months, beginning in 1867, {{convert|37|mi|km}} of massive wooden [[snow sheds]] and galleries were built between Blue Cañon and Truckee, covering cuts and other points where there was danger of avalanches. 2,500 men and six material trains were employed in this work, which was completed in 1869. The sheds were built with two sides and a steep peaked roof, mostly of locally cut hewn timber and round logs. Snow galleries had one side and a roof that sloped upward until it met the mountainside, thus permitting avalanches to slide over the galleries, some of which extended up the mountainside as much as {{convert|200|ft|m}}. Masonry walls such as the "Chinese Walls" at Donner Summit were built across canyons to prevent avalanches from striking the side of the vulnerable wooden construction.<ref>Galloway, C.E., John Debo ''The First Transcontinental Railroad''. New York: Simmons-Boardman, (1950). Ch. 7.</ref><ref>Cooper, Bruce C. [http://cprr.org/Museum/Sierra_Grade_8-2003/Donner_Pass-Summit_Tunnel/index.html "CPRR Summit Tunnel (#6), Tunnels #7 & #8, Snowsheds, "Chinese" Walls, Donner Trail, and Dutch Flat Donner – Lake Wagon Road at Donner Pass"] CPRR.org</ref><ref>[http://cprr.org/Museum/Sierra_Grade_8-2003/Period_Views/index.html#Cisco "Period construction images of snowsheds at Cisco and Donner Summit"] CPRR.org</ref> A few concrete sheds (mostly at crossovers) are still in use today.

===Union Pacific construction===
[[File:Grenville Dodge.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Grenville M. Dodge]] wearing a [[major general]]'s uniform]]

The major investor in the Union Pacific was Thomas Clark Durant,<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/tcrr/peopleevents/p_durant.html| title=People & Events: Thomas Clark Durant (1820–1885)| publisher=PBS| work=American Experience: Transcontinental Railroad| year=2003| access-date=2007-05-10}}</ref> who had made his stake money by smuggling Confederate cotton with the aid of [[Grenville M. Dodge]]. Durant chose routes that would favor places where he held land, and he announced connections to other lines at times that suited his share dealings. He paid an associate to submit the construction bid to another company he controlled, [[Crédit Mobilier of America scandal|Crédit Mobilier]], manipulating the finances and government subsidies and making himself another fortune. Durant hired Dodge as chief engineer and [[John S. Casement|Jack Casement]] as construction boss.{{citation needed|date=October 2016}}

In the East, the progress started in Omaha, Nebraska, by the Union Pacific Railroad which initially proceeded very quickly because of the open terrain of the [[Great Plains]]. This changed as the work entered Indian-held lands, because the railroad violated Native American treaties with the United States. War parties began to raid the moving labor camps that followed the progress of the line. Union Pacific responded by increasing security and hiring marksmen to kill [[American Bison]], which were both a physical threat to trains and the primary food source for many of the Plains Indians. The Native Americans then began killing laborers when they realized that the so-called "Iron Horse" threatened their existence. Security measures were further strengthened, and progress on the railroad continued.{{citation needed|date=October 2016}}

Gen. [[William Tecumseh Sherman]]'s first postwar command (Military Division of the Mississippi) covered the territory west of the Mississippi and east of the Rocky Mountains, and his top priority was to protect the construction of the railroads. In 1867, he wrote to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, "we are not going to let thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress" of the railroads.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/where-the-buffalo-no-longer-roamed-3067904/|title=Where the Buffalo No Longer Roamed: The Transcontinental Railroad connected East and West – and accelerated the destruction of what had been in the center of North America|last=King|first=Gilbert|date=17 July 2012|website=Smithsonian.com|access-date=10 April 2012}}</ref>

"On the ground in the West, Gen. Philip Henry Sheridan, assuming Sherman's command, took to his task much as he had done in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War, when he ordered the "scorched earth" tactics that presaged Sherman's March to the Sea."<ref name=":0" />

"The devastation of the buffalo population signalled the end of the Indian Wars, and Native Americans were pushed into reservations. In 1869, the Comanche chief Tosawi was reported to have told Sheridan, "Me Tosawi. Me good Indian," and Sheridan allegedly replied, "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead." The phrase was later misquoted, with Sheridan supposedly stating, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." Sheridan denied he had ever said such a thing."<ref name=":0" />

"By the end of the 19th century, only 300 buffalo were left in the wild. Congress finally took action, outlawing the killing of any birds or animals in Yellowstone National Park, where the only surviving buffalo herd could be protected. Conservationists established more wildlife preserves, and the species slowly rebounded. Today, there are more than 200,000 bison in North America."<ref name=":0" />

"Sheridan acknowledged the role of the railroad in changing the face of the American West, and in his ''Annual Report of the General of the U.S. Army'' in 1878, he acknowledged that the Native Americans were scuttled to reservations with no compensation beyond the promise of religious instruction and basic supplies of food and clothing—promises, he wrote, which were never fulfilled."<ref name=":0" />

"We took away their country and their means of support, broke up their mode of living, their habits of life, introduced disease and decay among them, and it was for this and against this they made war. Could any one expect less? Then, why wonder at Indian difficulties?"<ref name=":0" />{{clear}}

===The "Last Spike" ceremony===
{{Main|Golden spike}}

[[File:The Last Spike 1869.jpg|thumb|left|''The Last Spike'' by Thomas Hill (1881) is on display at the [[California State Railroad Museum]] in Sacramento, California.]] [[File:Az-gold-spike.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.45|Golden spike, one of four ceremonial spikes driven at the completion]]

Six years after the groundbreaking, laborers of the Central Pacific Railroad from the west and the Union Pacific Railroad from the east met at [[Promontory Summit]], Utah Territory. On the Union Pacific side was Union Pacific No 119, an 1868 4-4-0 type. Thrusting westward, the last two rails were laid by Irishmen. On the Central Pacific side was their Central Pacific No 60 Jupiter, another 1868 4-4-0 type. Thrusting eastward, the last two rails were laid by the Chinese.<ref name="dobie" />{{rp|85}}
[[File:A111, Golden Spike National Historic Site, Utah, USA, 2004.jpg|thumb|left|Operating steam engines are in the [[Golden Spike National Historical Park|Golden Spike National Historic Park]] at Promontory Summit, Utah.]]

It was at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869, that the two engines met. Leland Stanford drove ''The Last Spike'' (or [[golden spike]]) that joined the rails of the transcontinental railroad. The spike is now on display at the [[Cantor Arts Center]] at [[Stanford University]], while a second "Last" Golden Spike is also on display at the [[California State Railroad Museum]] in Sacramento.<ref>[http://www.csrmf.org/events-exhibits/whats-new/see-the-golden-lost-spike-at-the-museum "See the "Lost" Golden Spike at the Museum"] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120724003437/http://www.csrmf.org/events-exhibits/whats-new/see-the-golden-lost-spike-at-the-museum |date=July 24, 2012 }} California State Railroad Museum.</ref> In perhaps the world's first live [[mass-media]] event, the hammers and spike were wired to the [[Telegraphy|telegraph]] line so that each hammer stroke would be heard as a click at telegraph stations nationwide—the hammer strokes were missed, so the clicks were sent by the telegraph operator. As soon as the ceremonial "Last Spike" had been replaced by an ordinary iron spike, a message was transmitted to both the East Coast and West Coast that simply read, "DONE". Travel from coast to coast was reduced from six months or more to just one week.