Soon the railroads were passing each other's work crews…crossing each other's survey stakes…building competing bridges to cross the same gully.
Narrator: Soon the railroads were passing each other's work crews…crossing each other's survey stakes…building competing bridges to cross the same gully.
[David Haward Bain] "And the whole idea seems to be in their minds that whoever got the final okay for the trackage would get the money. And so it didn't matter if they graded extraneously, if their survey stakes were within inches of each other, even if they laid their railroad tracks over the top of the tracks of the other company."
[Stanford] "At one point they are probably within two hundred feet of us. From Bear River to the Promontory, we are so close that the U.P. cross us twice. In other areas their line occasionally runs within a few feet!"-Leland Stanford
Narrator: The nation that had struggled to get the railroad started, now realized it had not created a mechanism to make the railroad companies stop building.
[Bain] "When they realized that if they didn't come up with a meeting point themselves, the government was going to pass some really quick and dirty legislation and make the decision for them.
So they finally met in February of 1869, at the home of Congressman Samuel Hooper, who had wisely invested in both railroads and in the construction arm of the Union Pacific. And they finally decided that they would meet in the Promontory Mountains at Promontory Summit.
Narrator: But even with the final meeting place set at Promontory Summit, there was one final act of competitive pride in Utah that the Central Pacific railroad considered unfinished business.
The Union Pacific had set what it claimed was a world record for laying track when it spiked eight miles of rail into place on one day.
Union Pacific executives claimed the record demonstrated their line's superior planning and skill. They dangled a $10,000 bet before the Central Pacific that the record could not be beaten. On April 28th, 1869 Charlie Crocker of the Central Pacific dramatically called their bluff.
[Michael Johnson] "Indeed, and in fact it is interesting that the Central Pacific waited to set this record when the Union Pacific was bogged down in the east slope of the Promontory Mountains and would never have a chance to answer back. It took an army of men, hundreds and hundreds of men were part of that track laying to lay out the ties and ballast the track and everything and pound the spikes, but it was actually a crew of about half a dozen Irishmen that physically laid ten miles of iron that one day.
Narrator: Thirty-five hundred rails were laid in place. Twenty-eight thousand spikes were driven by hand. The Irish track layers lifted the equivalent of 125 tons of steel during the 12 hour day. Charlie Crocker and the Central Pacific had their record.
[Crocker] "We got our forces together and laid ten miles, 185 feet in one day, and that did not leave them enough room to beat us! But they couldn't have done it anyhow-Charles Crocker."
Narrator: By the first week of may, 1869 the rail lines of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific were face-to-face on the wind- swept rolling hills of Promontory summit in Utah. May 8 was set as the date to link the two lines. And then disaster struck.
[David Haward Bain] "May 8 doesn't happen because they were building bridges through Weber Canyon so quickly that they really did not pay attention to the fact that this was springtime.
[Deseret News] "The bridges in Weber Canyon are on the rampage. The past few days sun has sent liquidizing snows in torrents, gathering force and assailing the most stupendous railroad crossings. The bridge at devil's gate commenced giving way last night.-The Deseret News, may 5th, 1869."
[Bain] "Not only were they having trouble with the bridge in lower Weber canyon, but then the vice president of the Union Pacific, Thomas Durant, the grand puppeteer behind everything, is kidnapped by his own men because they are two months without pay. And so in the town of Piedmont, Wyoming his train was all of a sudden put onto a siding, and masked men got onto the train and hustled him off. And they were told that they would not get their vice president back until all of their back pay had been put in."
[Michael Johnson] "Eventually the ransom of $80,000, which was just a down payment on what was owed, came, and Durant wasn't turned loose until Saturday, May 8, and he was able to go back to company offices at Echo City then.
Narrator: The short-lived kidnapping gave crews enough time to jerry-rig a passage at the washed out bridge of Devil's Gate in Utah. The Promontory ceremony was re-set for Monday, May 10th.
One of the most anticipated events in the nation…had received virtually no pre-planning at Promontory.
[Michael Johnson] "In truth the actual event was really ill-planned. In fact, there was almost no planning at all. This was a media event staged for the rest of the country, and the people at Promontory got short shrift."
Narrator: On the morning of May 10th an estimated 1500 people assembled on Promontory Summit. The vast majority were rail workers, but some local citizens made their way to the site, joining a military detachment bound for San Francisco. All gathered under a flag that featured thirty-six stars. At this moment of moments, Utah's leading citizen and primary railroad contractor was nowhere to be found.
[Bain] "Brigham Young had to be thinking about the amount of money that was owed to his people at that point when they were doing all of the celebrating, because there were still a lot of bills that hadn't been paid. I think the reason that he didn't go was a smart one, because this celebration was not in any local control. And if Young had gone up there and been snubbed, the way he'd been snubbed by many of the Union Pacific people over the past months, it would have been very embarrassing to him politically among his own people."
Narrator: Brigham Young had turned his back on the ceremony and traveled to settlements in Southern Utah. By his reckoning the railroad companies owed him over one million dollars as they gathered at Promontory.
The ceremony had moved to its final stage and a rail spike of pure gold was presented. But counter to folklore, it was never hammered as the final spike. Instead, it was slipped into a pre-drilled hole for show, and quickly pulled out. Officials from the Central Pacific and Union Pacific swung heavy hammers at a final iron spike…and missed. But it was enough to trigger a one word message from the telegraph operators:
[Michael Johnson] "Done. D-o-n-e. And that brought great celebration all across the country."
[David Haward Bain] "…and then simultaneously a cannon looking over the Pacific and a cannon looking over the Atlantic boom out the notice to the world. Tens of thousands of people in Chicago and San Francisco and Sacramento and Washington and new york and all of the major towns and small towns erupt into a wild tumult of celebration."
[Leland Stanford] "To his excellency, General U.S. Grant, president of the United States. Sir: we have the honor to report the pacific railroad is finished.-Leland Stanford"
Narrator: Souvenir hunters dropped on the track, prying up dozens of spikes and splintering the last wooden rail-tie to pieces until it disappeared into a hundred different hands. The race was over…symbolically, a new race was beginning as many were left scrambling for a piece of the moment.
[Michael Johnson] "Well its almost like waking up with a hangover after a great party because the problems of the railroad construction started coming home to roost after the great party of completion. The Union Pacific was in tremendous debt having difficulty paying its bills and its contractors.
Narrator: In April…before the line was completed…Brigham Young had dispatched his son to Boston to confront the Union Pacific board of directors and demand payment of close to one million dollars.
[Joseph A. Young] "April 3, 1869 - The affairs of the Union Pacific are in a muddle. Credit is weak and there is a general apprehension that they will not meet their obligations. If the money is ever collected from them, it will be in the next world. Your son, Joseph A. Young"
Narrator: From his earliest pronouncements from the pulpit, Brigham Young had staked a personal claim to the railroad work that he said had been divinely inspired. It was Brigham's contract. His negotiating skills that would secure the best deal for Mormon workers. It was his plan to keep out the evil influences, and extract the good.
[Michael Quinn] "He hoped it would bring cash revenues, and the Union Pacific was notoriously corrupt, resulting in Congressional investigations, and so the result was that virtually no cash came in terms of what had been promised and contracted. In some ways the contract almost brought Mormons to the brink of bankruptcy because the cash flow did not come in as promised."
[David Haward Bain] "And this was a tremendous shock to Utah, and we find by the summer of 1869 we find the territory just thrown out onto the barter system because there was no cash."
Narrator: Mormon workers had signed IOUs to local businesses for food and clothing…businesses had borrowed money to stay in business. The territorial economy was failing because of the unpaid railroad work. Brigham Young attempted to remind the Union Pacific of T.C. Durant's promises.
[Brigham Young] "When you were present you were pleased to make a promise to my sons Brigham and john w. That if we would keep on a large work force you would pay what it is worth.
Narrator: Durant would not respond. Instead, the letters Young received were from destitute fellow church members who begged for their pay. One--Bernard Snow--had served as a subcontractor, hiring hundreds of men to work on the rail line for up to one year.
[Bernard Snow] "July 26, 1869
May God bless them, for they have suffered severely. Most have suffered sore deprivations. They are exasperated, and deal out threats of violence. It is of vital importance to me to know what I can depend upon, for the ruinous interest daily swelling my already too-heavy liabilities makes financial ruin inevitable. I must ask you. What will be done to satisfy their claims? They have not been paid one cent!--Bernard Snow."
Narrator: But for others, the losses were measured in more than money,
[David Haward Bain] "You have the firm of Benson, Farr and West who had agreed to grade between Humboldt Wells in Nevada, all the way up to the Promontory Mountains. And basically Chauncey West was the youngest man. He was in his early forties at that point, and he really took the brunt of the work
And he got himself into some real hot water financially, when people were asking to be paid and he still had not been paid by the Central Pacific, he advanced his own money. And so he was virtually ruined by this whole thing with the railroad.
Narrator: Brigham Young tried to intervene in west's behalf with Leland Stanford, reminding Stanford of the promises that had been made during the fierce final stage of competition.
[Brigham Young] You promised me that if I telegraphed Bishop West to take charge of the work and crowd it through, you would see that he was made whole or indemnified to the full extent. It was no matter what the work cost, the object was to have the work done!"
Narrator: Chauncey West, polygamist husband to several wives and father to more than two dozen children, pursued Stanford in California.
In a San Francisco hotel he dropped dead of a stroke at the age of forty-three. His partner, LDS church apostle Ezra Taft Benson, died the same week. In Boston, Brigham's son Joseph made one final head-strong push on the Union Pacific board of directors, recounting his confrontation in a letter home to his father:
[Joseph Young] "I wish to know whether it is the intention of this company to keep President Young out of three-fourths of a million dollars. If so, the Union Pacific will swindle the very men who built the railroad. Remember, the road is out in our country, and I think we can pull hard enough so you can feel it on the other end!"
[Bain] "At one point one of the board members threatened Young that he was going to have the army descend on Utah and take out the LDS command. And Young replied that he would go to the courts, and he said if its necessary, then this will be a fight to the knife."
Narrator: Brigham Young viewed the threat of military intervention as an excuse for anti-Mormon forces to destroy the Kingdom of God in the American West. "He put John Sharp…a lawyer, Mormon church leader and railroad contractor…in charge of negotiations with the Union Pacific. Brigham also worked to quell the fears of financial panic in the Utah territory. He suspended church tithing payments by indebted members…used church food storehouses to feed the hungry. .and urged his followers to put cooperation above profit and debt."
[Brigham Young] "The embarrassment caused me by the failure of the company to pay me as per contract means the whole business of our territory is suffering greatly, and our merchants are severely cramped having advanced means to the graders of the road, who are unable to pay because the company has not kept their engagements with me."
Narrator: It soon became clear that a handful of well-connected deal makers had made millions in building the transcontinental railroad by being on the inside, skimming profits and walking away when they could. Despite being one of the earliest investors in the Union Pacific, Brigham Young had been one of the many left on the outside. So obvious was the economic slight that another unpaid contractor actually took pity on Young:
[William Davis] "In the distribution of immense gains, certain stockholders have been excluded, among them Brigham Young. It is clear there is an attempt to defraud Brigham Young."
Narrator: In Boston, John Sharp was making little progress in getting money out of the Union Pacific.
[John Sharp] "May 5, 1870
I presented a bill for 198-thousand dollars…which was met with a grand laugh."
Narrator: Several U.P. leaders grumbled that Brigham Young was trying to gouge the company for money he did not deserve. But a deal was cut to allow Mormon emigrants to ride the rails west, with the fare being credited against the debt. Brigham Young was also interested in using the Union Pacific as a primary supplier for his plan to build a railroad from Salt Lake City to the transcontinental line. Somewhere it was proposed that the Union Pacific transfer $700,000 worth of rail cars and supplies to Brigham Young to close out the debt.
[David Haward Bain] "We know we owe you $1.2 million, but go back to Young and ask if he'll take $700,000 and we'll just call it quits. And Sharp goes and he does that, and he comes back all the way back to Boston and says 'Young says that this will work.' "
Narrator: Brigham Young knew railroad supplies would not pay the men, and would not settle the i-o-us with local merchants.
[Brigham Young] "January 28, 1870
Dear brother:
I wish to have a meeting of all those of the brethren to whom I am indebted for work on the Union Pacific railroad, to talk the matter over, relative to the indebtedness…"
Narrator: Young called the meeting for the Salt Lake Tabernacle. Closed to the public, the content of the meeting never made the newspapers. Years later, a rail worker said Brigham confirmed the obvious-the railroad money was not coming. It was a loss they would all have to endure…Another test of faith. He invoked images of earlier Mormon suffering, and said this, too, would be overcome.
The scandal of an unpaid Utah debt was lost in a sea of Union Pacific red ink and Congressional investigations into political corruption surrounding the railroad. Of more lasting consequence, within months of its completion, the transcontinental railroad was changing the face of the American West. Nowhere was the change more profound than in Utah. The population of the territory more than doubled between 1860 and 1870. Mormon emigrants could now travel across the plains to their new American Zion in a matter of days. But in the first year of the rail line, an equal number of non-Mormons flowed to the Utah territory. They encouraged a mining boom…Started new businesses…and populated new rail towns like Corinne.
An attempt to have Corrine and the transcontinental railroad seceded from Utah and grafted on to Idaho was approved by a Congressional committee, but ultimately died. Missionaries started appearing in the Utah territory. Methodists, Catholics, Presbyterians…all creating school and medical missions in an effort to convert members of the Mormon church…with little success. Political parties appeared in the territory. The Liberal Party's platform was simple and direct: it was the non-Mormon party. Mormons responded with their own "People's Party"…and the Utah territory took on a unique brand of two-party politics.
In 1870, the politics became even more unique for the time when the territorial legislature granted women the right to vote. Some hailed it an act of enlightened suffrage. Others labeled it a cynical maneuver by Brigham Young to assure his political control as the Utah population became more diverse. Both Mormon and non-Mormon would debate if all this represented progress. In one version, Brigham Young would be portrayed as politically blind and intransigent…steamrolled by shrewder men…leading his people down a path of economic ruin.
In the other version, Young had done all he could…protected local control of the economy…and secured the future of Utah by working to bring the railroad to life. In 1868 Brigham Young had forecast the railroad would mean prosperity and a golden era of appreciation for his vision of the Kingdom of God:
[Brigham Young] "And when the road is finished, our friends can come and see us, and witness the peace the order the freedom from crime that possesses our cities of Zion."
Narrator: But rather than confirmation, the most anticipated event in Utah's short history would bring change. The isolation that was both shield and challenge would evaporate in stronger, complicated ties to a nation marching westward. Expectations were replaced by realities. The ceremony at Promontory had appeared to be an end…in reality, Promontory would prove to be a beginning.
THE END
