t "in the newly opened country a rail line meant commerce and a link with civilization" (Wyant, 1982, p. 45). Thus, in 1862, the Pacific Railroad Act was passed which provided massive land grants to railroad companies for the purpose of expanding transportation and communication lines into the western frontier. This act chartered the Union Pacific Railroad to lay track westward until it met with the Central Pacific Railroad, which was in the meantime working eastward from California (Wyant, 1982, p. 45). The two lines met in Promontory, Utah in 1869.
Following the historic establishment of the Union Pacific line, Congress began subsidizing several other important railway links to the West. For example, similar land grants were provided to the Northern Pacific Railroad in the revised Pacific Railroad Act of 1864. The Northern Pacific Railroad eventually provided a line which connected Seattle, Portland and Tacoma in the West with Duluth in the East. However, because of financial problems on the part of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, this line was not completed until nineteen years later (Wyant, 1982, p 47). Ten years after that, in 1893, the Great Northern Railroad Company also completed a line linking Seattle with the East. In the southern portion of the United States, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad created an extensive line which linked Chicago, St. Louis, Albuquerque and San Francisco. Also in the South, the Southern Pacific Railroad was subsidized for the purpose of linking Chicago, New Orleans, San Antonio, Tucson, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
These various railroad lines contributed strongly to the development of the western territories as well as the urban centers located within those territories. However, this development came at the cost of severe exploitation on the part of the railroad companies themselves. There have been numerous stories of serious corruption on the part of early rail...