How Chinese immigrants built the Transcontinental Railroad

When the first steam locomotives came to the United States in the 1830s, they brought with them the dream that someday the country would be connected end-to-end by rail. The Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869. But it was a hard-won success, with the final 700 miles of track being built almost entirely by skilled immigrants from China who endured racist treatment, unfairly low pay, and extremely dangerous conditions. Nearly 12,000 Chinese workers toiled for more than four years to complete the western section of the railroad and connect the coasts. The U.S. Civil War had just ended. In Guangdong province in China, however, civil war had just begun. When the Central Pacific Railroad’s want ads for skilled laborers went largely unanswered in America, they advertised in China. Men emigrated in droves, hoping to find economic stability and send money back to support their families. The men who came were chefs, physicians, blacksmiths and metal workers, carpenters and craftsmen, and architects. Their unique skills helped make the construction a success because they could handle a variety of problems and because they formed rich, self-sustaining communities in the deserts where they worked. These men were paid lower wages than their white counterparts even though they were given the most dangerous jobs, which included making tunnels by boring or blasting. Some estimate that nearly one thousand Chinese workers died during construction. The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad spurred the settlement of the American West and created huge economic opportunities for the United States. Before the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln had called the railroad the country’s most important goal. But for a long time, the Chinese laborers weren’t given credit for their contributions to this engineering marvel. No Chinese laborers were formally recognized at the opening ceremony of the railroad. But their achievements are finally being recognized. The U.S. Department of Labor inducted the Chinese rail workers into the Hall of Honor in 2014, and research and archaeological work is ongoing to identify the men and their descendants.