Beyond the West: containing an account of two years' travel in the other half of our great continent far beyond the old West, on the plains, in the Rocky mountains, and picturesque parks of Colorado. Also, characteristic features of New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho ... Oregon, Utah, Nevada, and ... California, the end of the West ... the great continental railroad, together with the ... most wonderful natural scenery in the world .../ by George W. Pine.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE CENTRAL PACIFIC COMPANY-ORIGIN AND CON STRUCTION.
The men who first undertook the construction of
the California portion of this continental line were
Charles Crocker, Stanford and Huntington. On the
anniversary of the battle of New Orleans in 1863,
a year and a half earlier than work was begun at
Omaha, the ground was broken at Sacramento.
Governor Stanford shoveled the first dirt from a
wagon, where the road was to commence.
Now having made a beginning, the many difficulties to be provided for, seeming almost insurmountable obstacles, which must be overcome, required
much ability and an unconquerable energy that no
obstacles would stop. For hundreds of miles on the
level plains, nature had done most of the grading; but foot-hills, larger hills, and the worst mountain ranges for the railroad on the continent must
be penetrated. Some mountains were soft and sliding,
in the rainy season nearly impassable, while others
were rock, so hard that it seemed impossible to drill
them. The rails, and much of the materials, must
be shipped from New York, and go all the way