Building the Pacific Railway, by Edwin Legrand Sabin
Click on the image above to view a larger image of the 1919 book cover
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TDHS has been the grateful recipient of a book published in 1919 (yes, over 100 years ago!!), called Building the Pacific Railway, by Edwin Legrand Sabin. We received this as a gift from a former history colleague Denny D. who has since relocated to New Mexico. Courtesy of a local historical society member, Stephen H., who received this book and one other, 2013 Iron Muse: Photographing the Transcontinental Railroad, by Glenn Willumson, and brought them to the historical society for donation. Given the age of the Sabin book, and even though it is available on google books, this book donation is a special treasure.
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Browsing through the 100 year old book and searching for any references to Truckee, there are 11 mentions for Truckee, mostly about distances between points on the track or of the Truckee River. Some of the more interesting musings:
p. 8 "More remarkable, a thousand names were enrolled of men and women who, some of them as children, assisted in laying those rails that 'banded the continent and wedded the oceans.'"
p. 46 Theodore Judah, chief engineer, moved from the East in 1854 as engineer for the Sacramento Valley Railroad, the first of the California iron roads, 22 miles, at a cost of $60,000 a mile. Judah was an "enthusiast upon the subject of a road over the Sierra Nevada range and his lore gained from some twenty surveys of that snowy divide fascinated his audience."
p. 47 The Dutch Flat route, continuation of popular emigrant and Forty-niner trail from Platte and the Salt Lake, went up the Truckee over Donner Pass and over the Sierra was Judah's recommendation. This demanded an ascent of 7,000' in not more than 70 miles.
p. 49 Theodore Judah was the "tutelary genius of the Pacific Railway".
p. 57 Dutch Flat and Donner Lake route" given a bad name; it was doubted that the company could ever finance a road across the Sierra, and thus dubbed the "Dutch Flat Swindle"
pp. 120-21 Engineer Clement dropped a shaft halfway so that the Summit tunnel digging would go faster; there is a great photo of Dutch Flat Mining Camp in 1865, just before the Central Pacific built through, page before p. 120
pp. 125-26 "Crocker turned loose an army of 11,000 Mongolians, 2500 Caucasians, 1000 teams ... monthly powder bill swelled to more than $64,000"; in the blasting a rock fragment weighing 240 pounds hurled 2/3 of a mile across Donner Lake.
pp. 11 (index), 111, 178, 184, 209 references to the Chinese as "Crocker's Pets"
p. 183 10,000 Chinese laborers and mechanics, 2000 whites, mainly Irish
p. 255 "Hell on Wheels" was the title accorded those "roaring towns" that sprung up and thrived on the railroad; first reported by Journalist Samuel Bowles in 1868
p. 8 "More remarkable, a thousand names were enrolled of men and women who, some of them as children, assisted in laying those rails that 'banded the continent and wedded the oceans.'"
p. 46 Theodore Judah, chief engineer, moved from the East in 1854 as engineer for the Sacramento Valley Railroad, the first of the California iron roads, 22 miles, at a cost of $60,000 a mile. Judah was an "enthusiast upon the subject of a road over the Sierra Nevada range and his lore gained from some twenty surveys of that snowy divide fascinated his audience."
p. 47 The Dutch Flat route, continuation of popular emigrant and Forty-niner trail from Platte and the Salt Lake, went up the Truckee over Donner Pass and over the Sierra was Judah's recommendation. This demanded an ascent of 7,000' in not more than 70 miles.
p. 49 Theodore Judah was the "tutelary genius of the Pacific Railway".
p. 57 Dutch Flat and Donner Lake route" given a bad name; it was doubted that the company could ever finance a road across the Sierra, and thus dubbed the "Dutch Flat Swindle"
pp. 120-21 Engineer Clement dropped a shaft halfway so that the Summit tunnel digging would go faster; there is a great photo of Dutch Flat Mining Camp in 1865, just before the Central Pacific built through, page before p. 120
pp. 125-26 "Crocker turned loose an army of 11,000 Mongolians, 2500 Caucasians, 1000 teams ... monthly powder bill swelled to more than $64,000"; in the blasting a rock fragment weighing 240 pounds hurled 2/3 of a mile across Donner Lake.
pp. 11 (index), 111, 178, 184, 209 references to the Chinese as "Crocker's Pets"
p. 183 10,000 Chinese laborers and mechanics, 2000 whites, mainly Irish
p. 255 "Hell on Wheels" was the title accorded those "roaring towns" that sprung up and thrived on the railroad; first reported by Journalist Samuel Bowles in 1868
