Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: When was the first US transcontinental railroad completed?
The Atlantic shipping terminal was in Colon, Panama. The Pacific terminal was in Panama City. The 48-mile double track railway was the first transcontinental railway and an engineering marvel of the era. Until the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, the Panama Railway Company carried the heaviest volume of freight per unit length of any railroad in the world. H. W. Corbett and others from Portland would then use it to get back and forth to the connecting ships to and from the East, rather than crossing on mule back. When the transcontinental Union Pacific Railroad to San Francisco was completed on May 10, 1869, this more direct route was then used for shipping and travel connecting to Portland by boat or stage coach.
He worked on the First Transcontinental Railroad as the foreman of a group of Chinese railroad workers, many of whom Chin, himself, recruited and helped to gain passage into the United States. His leadership was important to the construction of the railroad because Chinese railroad workers were used to lay the steel rails. Following the completion of the railroad in 1869 he settled for a time in Black Hawk, Colorado where he was the unofficial leader of a group of Chinese immigrants who settled in a community called Cottonwood.
In 1848, during the American occupation of Mexico after the Mexican–American War, Raynolds and other U.S. Army personnel were the first confirmed to have reached the summit Pico de Orizaba, the tallest mountain in Mexico, and inadvertently set what may have been a 50-year American alpine altitude record. In 1859, Raynolds was placed in charge of the first government-sponsored expedition to venture into the upper Yellowstone region that was later to become Yellowstone National Park. Heavy winter snowpack in the Absaroka Range of Wyoming prevented the expedition from reaching the Yellowstone Plateau, forcing them to divert to the south and cross Union Pass at the northern end of the Wind River Range. After negotiating the pass the expedition entered Jackson Hole and surveyed the Teton Range, now within Grand Teton National Park.
1782: The first steam-driven train is invented by Richard Trevithick in Boston, Plymouth Commonwealth. A race is held in a commonwealth bordering the New Nile starting in Springfield and ending in Cairo, with one of the hairy elephant-pulled trains they threaten to replace.
The history of the Kansas City metropolitan area started in the 19th century as Frenchmen from St. Louis, Missouri moved up the Missouri River to trap for furs and trade with the Native Americans. The Kansas City metropolitan area, straddling the border between Missouri and Kansas at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, was a strategic point for commerce and security. Kansas City, Missouri was founded in 1838 and defeated its rival Westport to become the predominant city west of St. Louis. The area played a major role in the westward expansion of the United States. The Santa Fe, and Oregon trails ran through the area. In 1854, when Kansas was opened to Euro-American settlement, the Missouri-Kansas border became the first battlefield in the conflict in the American Civil War.
On October 10, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson sent a signal from the White House by telegraph which triggered the explosion that destroyed the Gamboa Dike. This flooded the Culebra Cut, thereby joining the Atlantic and Pacific oceans via the Panama Canal. (a floating crane built by Lobnitz & Company and launched in 1887) was the first self-propelled vessel to transit the canal from ocean to ocean. This vessel crossed the canal from the Atlantic in stages during construction, finally reaching the Pacific on January 7, 1914. (a cargo and passenger ship built by Maryland Steel, and launched in 1902 as SS "Tremont") on August 3, 1914 was the first ship to transit the canal from ocean to ocean.
U.S. Route 101 (US 101) in the state of California is one of the last remaining and longest U.S. Routes still active in the state, and the longest highway of any kind in California. US 101 was also one of the original national routes established in 1926. Significant portions of US 101 between the Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area follow El Camino Real, the historic road connecting the former Alta California's 21 missions.
On 11 October 1883, a convention of railroad executives met in Chicago and agreed to the implementation of five time zones in North America, using as a basis Greenwich Mean Time. Before the invitations to the Washington conference were sent out on December 1, the joint efforts of Abbe, Fleming and William Frederick Allen, Secretary of the US railways' "General Time Convention" and Managing Editor of the "Travellers' Official Guide to the Railways", had brought the US railway companies to an agreement which led to standard railway time being introduced at noon on 18 November 1883 across the nation. Although this was not legally established until 1918, there was thus a strong sense of "fait accompli" that preceded the Washington conference, although setting local times was not part of the remit of the conference.
In January 1847, the Mormon Battalion arrived in San Diego, having constructed the first wagon road across the southwest into Southern California. Battalion Members helped construct a number of building and public works in San Diego. They then traveled to Los Angeles where they built a fort and raised the American flag. Six discharged battalion members were at Sutter's Mill in northern California when gold was discovered there on January 24, 1848. Heading for their families in Utah, they carved the first wagon road over the Sierra Nevadas that would be used by thousands of westward bound travelers including the gold rush "Forty-Niners." Sometimes called the "49er's Highway," it is officially called the Mormon Emigrant - Kit Carson Highway.
In February 1856, George Q. Cannon began publication in San Francisco of the "Western Standard", a weekly periodical supportive of the Church.
The American China Development Company then pursued the right to build the southern leg, from Wuchang across the river from Hankou to Guangzhou ("Canton") on the Pearl River. America, unlike the Russian, French, German, Japanese, or British empires, did not have a political stake in the Chinese economy and had significant experience building railroads, which made the American China Development Company an attractive option. In April 1898, the Chinese minister in Washington and A.W. Bash came to an agreement for a loan in which the American company had to market bonds worth 4,000,000, to oversee the construction of the railroad, and to operate it during the fifty years of the loan period. The concession also allowed the company to operate coal mines nearby. The Guangzhou–Wuchang line was the only railway project secured by an American company after 1895, but even this railway line would be lost within seven years.
The first transatlantic flight by rigid airship, and the first return transatlantic flight, was made just a couple of weeks after the transatlantic flight of Alcock and Brown, on 2 July 1919. Major George Herbert Scott of the Royal Air Force flew the airship R34 with his crew and passengers from RAF East Fortune, Scotland to Mineola, New York (on Long Island), covering a distance of about in about four and a half days.
Carl Fisher was an American automotive and real estate entrepreneur who conceived the Lincoln Highway in 1912, and helped to develop it. Connecting New York City to San Francisco, it was the first highway to cross the United States. The intention to develop the highway was announced in 1913, and Iowans raised over $5 million for the construction of the road. There were no particularly good options to cross Iowa, but the Lincoln Highway Association wanted a direct route between Chicago and Omaha. The route through Iowa was announced on September 14, 1913. They chose what was known as the "Iowa Official Trans-Continental Route," which was already being used by transcontinental motorists through the state. It covered of dirt and gravel roads that began in Clinton and traveled west to Council Bluffs. Rural roads in Iowa were notorious for their poor condition, and when it rained the mud made them even worse. The chosen route paralleled the Chicago Northwestern Railroad tracks as they followed the driest and least hilly terrain in the state.
The Four Corners Monument is the only point in the United States where four states meet: Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona meet at right angles. The United States first acquired the area now called Four Corners from Mexico after the Mexican–American War in 1848. In 1863 Congress created Arizona Territory from the western part of New Mexico Territory. The boundary was defined as a line running due south from the southwest corner of Colorado Territory, which had been created in 1861. By defining one boundary as starting at the corner of another Congress ensured the eventual creation of four states meeting at a point, regardless of the inevitable errors of boundary surveying. The monument is centered at .
The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway commenced construction in British Columbia in 1908. This was one of the most difficult sections of track ever to be laid in North America and would cost approximately $112,000 per mile. There were two ends of construction, one being built from Prince Rupert, east and one from Winnipeg, Manitoba, west. In British Columbia, the railway had to cope with incredibly difficult terrain, extreme weather conditions and a shortage of workers. For example, the section of track from Prince Rupert to Hazelton took four years to complete (1908–1912), in part because the construction of the section from Prince Rupert to the Kitselas Canyon required of explosives that were used in the creation of three tunnels that had to be blasted through solid rock.
From June 4, 1812 until August 10, 1821 the area that would become Kansas Territory 33 years later was part of the Missouri Territory. When Missouri was granted statehood in 1821 the area became unorganized territory and contained little to no permanent white settlement with the exception of Fort Leavenworth. The Fort was established in 1827 by Henry Leavenworth with the 3rd U.S Infantry from St. Louis, Missouri; it is the first permanent European settlement in Kansas. The fort was established as the westernmost outpost of the American military to protect trade along the Santa Fe Trail from Native Americans. The trade came from the East, by land using the Boone's Lick Road, or by water via the Missouri River. This area, called the Boonslick, was located due east in west-central Missouri and was settled by Upland Southerners from Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee as early as 1812. It's slave-holding population would contrast with settlers from New England who would eventually arrive in the 1850s. 
The land that would become Kansas Territory was considered to be infertile by 19th century American pioneers. It was called the Great American Desert, for it lacked trees and was dryer than land eastward. Technically, it was part of the vast grasslands that make up the North American Great Plains and supported giant herds of American bison. After the invention of the steel plow and more sophisticated irrigation methods the thick prairie soil would be broken for agriculture. By the 1850s immigration pressure was increasing and organization into a Territory was desired.
U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101) is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, on the West Coast of the United States. It is also known as (The Royal Road) where its route along the southern and central California coast approximates the old trail which linked the Spanish missions, pueblos, and presidios. It merges at some points with California State Route 1 (SR 1).
The Chinese came to California in large numbers during the California Gold Rush, with 40,400 being recorded as arriving from 1851–1860, and again in the 1860s, when the Central Pacific Railroad recruited large labor gangs, many on five-year contracts, to build its portion of the Transcontinental Railroad. The Chinese laborers worked out well and thousands more were recruited until the railroad's completion in 1869. Chinese labor provided the massive workforce needed to build the majority of the Central Pacific's difficult route through the Sierra Nevada mountains and across Nevada.
Until the development of the steamboat, transportation of goods on major rivers was generally accomplished either with barges or flatboats, floated downstream or pushed upstream with poles or by hand using overhanging tree limbs. On the Mississippi River, most shipping was down river on log rafts or wooden boats that were dismantled and sold as lumber in the vicinity of New Orleans. Steam-powered river navigation began in 1811-12, between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and New Orleans. Inland steam navigation rapidly expanded in the following decades. Railroads appeared before the Civil War, though at first were used to link waterways. After the Civil War, railroads took over most of the hauling of goods.
I-80 is the Interstate Highway that most closely approximates the route of the historic Lincoln Highway, the first road across the United States. The highway roughly traces other historically significant travel routes in the Western United States: the Oregon Trail across Wyoming and Nebraska, the California Trail across most of Nevada and California, the first transcontinental airmail route, and except in the Great Salt Lake area, the entire route of the First Transcontinental Railroad. From near Chicago east to near Youngstown, Ohio, I-80 is a toll road, containing the majority of both the Indiana Toll Road and the Ohio Turnpike. I-80 runs concurrently with I-90 from near Portage, Indiana, to Elyria, Ohio. In Pennsylvania, I-80 is known as the Keystone Shortway, a non-tolled freeway that crosses rural north-central portions of the state on the way to New Jersey and New York City.
In 1865, the Missouri Pacific railroad reached Kansas City. At the time, Kansas City was similar in population to Independence and Leavenworth, Kansas. That was to change in 1867, when Kansas City defeated Leavenworth (then over twice Kansas City's size) for the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad bridge over the Missouri River. The Hannibal Bridge, designed by Octave Chanute, opened in 1869. With that, the city's population quadrupled in fifty years.
The Central Railroad was built with high standards; it was built with almost no grade crossings, even though it went through rural country. As a result of the need to cross roads, the railroad had to go above or below the grade of the roads, adding to construction costs. The cost of the bridging and tunneling was $110,000. Along the line, two iron bridges were built over Ireland Mill Creek, which drained Kissena Lake, as well as twenty culverts. Steel rails were shipping to Garden City on the Central Railroad at the end of July 1871, when the Long Island Rail Road started shipping them from the docks at Hunter's Point. The rails were distributed and the ties were laid out in August, and the first rail on the plains segment was laid on October 20, near the LIRR crossing, and at two other points eastward. The laying of the track was done rapidly in order not to incur a fine of $250 per day. Three of the nine miles had been laid by December 23. On December 12, the Lawrence Street tunnel, located in Flushing, was finished.
The CPRR route passed through Newcastle and Truckee in California, Reno, Wadsworth, Winnemucca, Battle Mountain, Elko and Wells in Nevada (with many more fuel and water stops), before connecting with the Union Pacific line at Promontory Summit in the Utah Territory. When the eastern end of the CPRR was extended to Ogden by purchasing the Union Pacific Railroad line from Promontory for about $2.8 million in 1870, it ended the short period of a boom town for Promontory, extended the Central Pacific tracks about and made Ogden a major terminus on the transcontinental railroad, as passengers and freight switched railroads there.
Subsequent to the railhead's meeting at Promontory Summit, U.T., the San Joaquin River Bridge at Mossdale Crossing (near present-day Lathrop, California) was completed on September 8, 1869. As a result, the western part of the route was extended from Sacramento to the Alameda Terminal in Alameda, California, and shortly thereafter, to the Oakland Long Wharf at Oakland Point in Oakland, California, and on to San Jose, California. Train ferries transferred some railroad cars to and from the Oakland wharves and tracks to wharves and tracks in San Francisco. Before the CPRR was completed, developers were building other feeder railroads like the Virginia and Truckee Railroad to the Comstock Lode diggings in Virginia City, Nevada, and several different extensions in California and Nevada to reach other cities there. Some of their main cargo was the thousands of cords of firewood needed for the many steam engines and pumps, cooking stoves, heating stoves etc. in Comstock Lode towns and the tons of ice needed by the miners as they worked ever deeper into the "hot" Comstock Lode ore body. In the mines, temperatures could get above at the work face and a miner often used over of ice per shift. This new railroad connected to the Central Pacific near Reno, and went through Carson City, the new capital of Nevada.
The first railroad in Sacramento as well as California was the Sacramento Valley Railroad finished in 1856 and engineered by Theodore Judah. Judah's efforts to realize a transcontinental railroad was transferred to the power of "The Big Four" investors, who created the Central Pacific Railroad. The First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869, when Central Pacific's line joined Union Pacific's at Promontory Summit. Sacramento's terminus was the primary departure station for the railroad until 1883.
The completion of Canada's first transcontinental railroad with the driving of the Last Spike at Craigellachie, British Columbia, on November 7, 1885, is an important milestone in Canadian history. Between 1881 and 1885, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) completed a line that spanned from the port of Montreal to the Pacific coast, fulfilling a condition of British Columbia's 1871 entry into the Canadian Confederation. The City of Vancouver, incorporated in 1886, was designated the western terminus of the line. The CPR became the first transcontinental railway company in North America in 1889 after its International Railway of Maine opened, connecting CPR to the Atlantic coast.
When the last spike was driven, the rail network was not yet connected to the Atlantic or Pacific but merely connected Omaha to Sacramento. To get from Sacramento to the Pacific, the Central Pacific purchased the struggling Western Pacific Railroad (unrelated to the railroad of the same name that would later parallel its route) and resumed construction on it, which had halted in 1866 due to funding troubles. In November 1869, the Central Pacific finally connected Sacramento to the east side of San Francisco Bay by rail at Oakland, California, where freight and passengers completed their transcontinental link to the city by ferry.