On May 10, 1869, the final spike in North America's first transcontinental railroad was driven home at Promontory Summit, Utah. Illustrated with the author's carefully researched, evocative paintings, here is a great adventure story in the history of the American West--the day Charles Crocker staked $10,000 on the crews' ability to lay a world record ten miles of track in a single, Ten Mile Day. “In her well-researched text, Fraser incorporates fascinating detail...while honestly addressing the prejudice faced by Chinese laborers. Good use of the broad picture-book format. An attractive resource.” ― Kirkus Reviews Mary Ann Fraser has illustrated more than forty books for children, and is the author-illustrator of a growing list of popular middle-grade books that focus on U.S. history. Her In Search of the Grand Canyon was voted a Best Book of the Year by School Library Journal and Ten Mile Day was an American Bookseller Pick, of the Lists. A graduate of Exter College of Art Design, she lives with her husband and three children in Simi Valley, California. Ten Mile Day and the Building of the Transcontinental Railroad By Mary Ann Fraser Henry Holt and Company Copyright © 1993 Mary Ann Fraser All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8050-4703-5 Contents Title Page, Copyright Notice, Map, Dedication, Begin Reading, The Next Day ... and Beyond, Acknowledgments, Suggested Reading, Glossary, Railroad Tools and Supplies, About the Author, Copyright, CHAPTER 1 On April 28, 1869, reporters and photographers crawled from their tents into the cold, gray light of early dawn. Soon a small group of officials gathered on a ridge. As daylight spread, workers from rival construction camps jostled for the best view. The nearly five thousand people who were camped out near the northeast shore of Great Salt Lake, Utah, made a lively and colorful crowd. Businessmen and workers, a military band, and army officers from the nearby garrisons had come to this desolate valley to see the last great push in the building of the first transcontinental railroad – Ten Mile Day. Before the 1860s no railway ran across all of North America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Only rough and dangerous wagon roads linked the coasts. Aside from a few local West Coast lines, there were no tracks at all past Omaha, Nebraska, and the ice-capped Sierra Nevadas appeared impassable by rail. But railroad engineer Theodore Dehone Judah was determined to unite east and west with an iron trail. He spent years exploring the Sierras until at last, in 1860, he found the best route across, and through, the mountains. In 1862, his plan in hand, Judah went to Washington, D.C., to convince Congress it should finance the transcontinental railroad – the greatest engineering feat in American history. The Pacific Railroad Act, which Judah helped to pass, finally made his dream possible, but he died only seven days after the first rails were laid. Two companies were given the job of building the railroad. To attract investors, the government promised to give money, and even free land, to each company based on the amount of track it laid. The Central Pacific was to begin in Sacramento, California and move east. The Union Pacific would begin in Omaha, Nebraska, and move west. Promontory Summit, Utah, was later chosen as their meeting place. The Central Pacific and the Union Pacific both broke ground in 1863. As the years went by, leaders of each team began to compete over who could lay the most track in a single day. In the beginning, even one mile a day was difficult. But with experience both companies had become highly skilled and organized. Like a large military campaign, the entire job was broken into smaller tasks, and each task was assigned a crew. When Charles Crocker, construction boss for the Central Pacific, learned that the Union Pacific had set a new record of seven miles, eighteen hundred feet on October 26, 1868, he boasted that his men could lay ten miles. Dr. Thomas C. Durant, vice president of the Union Pacific, wagered $10,000 that it could not be done. Most people believed that laying ten miles of track in a day was impossible. But the Central Pacific had already done the impossible many times. In the first years of construction Chinese laborers had blasted fifteen tunnels through the solid granite of the high Sierras. They had overcome dozens of fierce winter blizzards, some with snowdrifts over a hundred feet high, and avalanches that swept away whole crews. Once past the mountains, the men faced new problems. In the scorching alkali deserts of the Nevada flats, they did not have enough water to drink, and they ran short of building supplies. When the Central Pacific reached Utah, rival Union Pacific crews attacked Chinese workers with pick handles and even detonated explosives near them, killing many. But Crocker and his crew had learned from their hardships. Now they were an efficient force. As the transcon