Westward By Rail: The New Route To The East

"On May 10, 1869, the linking of two railroads between the Mississippi Valley and the Rocky Mountains at Promontory, Utah, ushered in a new era in the history of the United States. Safe, quick, and reliable transportation had finally subdued the hostile western landscape and opened up the American frontier.That same year, William Fraser Rae undertook the 3,000 mile journey by rail from New York to San Francisco to detail the nature and magnitude of the enterprise for the thousands who would soon follow.Throughout the trip, the author fully describes all the stops, whether the giant commericial metropolis of Chicago or the makeshift town of Elko. The passengers one might have expected to share a seat with are described here as well, from industrial tycoons and card sharks to farmers and Pawnee Indians adorned with the scalps of their victims. In short all that could be seen by rail of nineteenth-century America is contained in Westward by Rail"