from Albany to Buffalo, two exclusively for freight and two for
passengers. By 1880 the American railroad, in all its essential
details, had definitely arrived.

But in this same period even more sensational developments had
taken place. Soon after 1865 the imagination of the American
railroad builder began to reach far beyond the old horizon. Up to
that time the Mississippi River had marked the Western railroad
terminus. Now and then a road straggled beyond this barrier for a
few miles into eastern Iowa and Missouri; but in the main the
enormous territory reaching from the Mississippi to the Pacific
Ocean was crossed only by the old trails. The one thing which
perhaps did most to place the transcontinental road on a
practical basis was the annexation of California in 1848; and the
wild rush that took place on the discovery of the gold fields one
year later had led Americans to realize that on the Pacific coast
they had an empire which was great and incalculably rich but
almost inaccessible. The loyalty of California to the Northern
cause in the war naturally stimulated a desire for closer
contact. In the ten years preceding 1860 the importance of a
transcontinental line had constantly been brought to the
attention of Congress and the project had caused much jealousy
between the North and the South, for each region desired to
control its Eastern terminus. This impediment no longer stood in
the way; early in his term, therefore, President Lincoln signed
the bill authorizing the construction of the Union Pacific--a
name doubly significant, as marking the union of the East and the
West and also recognizing the sentiment of loyalty or union that
this great enterprise was intended to promote. The building of
this railroad, as well as that of the others which ultimately