Building the Transcontinental Railroad and Other Railroads

The photo above is Iron Road Pioneers, a statue by Elizabeth MacQueen, placed on January 18, 2003 in front of the AMTRAK Rail Road Station in San Luis Obispo, California. Photo courtesy of Central Coast Chinese Association.

The unveiling and dedication ceremony was held on January 18, 2003 in front of AMTRAK station in San Luis Obispo, California. The bronze sculpture is to honor Chinese immigrants who built railroads in the United States with sweat, blood and tears.

Chinese laborers were recruited to build railroads in the U.S. They played a key role in the building of railroads in the U.S. and Canada The best known is the western portion of theTranscontinental Railroad  stretching from Sacramento in California to Promontory Summit in Utah.  The completion of this section joined the East Coast with the West. In its first year of operation, the railroad brought 142,000 people to the West from the East . Chinese railroad workers laid the last rail and drove the last  spike that united the rails on the Transcontinental Railroad.

The railroads were built under extremely difficult and dangerous conditions that resulted in many deaths.  Deaths of the Chinese laborers were not reported, or memorialized as if they were nameless. Adding insult to injury, Chinese were not invited to the ceremony marking the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. They were not mentioned in newspapers and none were present at the celebration. You can read about the Chinese railroad workers in Portraits of Pride Book II published by Chinese American Historical Society of Southern California.

Some of the other railroads built with significant contribution from Chinese laborers are :

Northern Pacific Railroad joining Seattle with Duluth, Minnesota.
Southern Pacific Railroad, joining Los Angeles with New Orleans.
Canadian Transcontinental Railroad.
Railroads in Tennessee and Alabama