Las Animas - Bent County Library District

Chronicles the race to build the first railroad to cross the North American continent.

The Great Iron Trail brilliantly recounts how the blood, sweat, tears and dollars of the dreamers, explorers, inventors, iron men, graders and financiers combined to build America's first transcontinental railroad. Only a century ago, the United States consisted of two littoral encampments on the East and West coasts. The perilous sailing trip around Cape Horn took from four to six months; the plague-ridden shortcut across the Panama Isthmus required...

Illustrated history of the building of the transcontinental railroad in the United States, beginning in 1862 when President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act into law, and ending on May 10, 1869, when the final, golden spike was driven, uniting tracks from the east and west.

A young boy hears the story of his great-great-great-grandfather and his brother who came to the United States to make a better life for themselves helping to build the transcontinental railroad.

Relates the events surrounding the completion of the world's first transcontinental railroad at Promontory, Utah, in 1869.

How two of America's greatest authors took on the Central Railroad monopoly The notorious Central Pacific Railroad riveted the attention of two great American writers: Ambrose Bierce and Frank Norris. In "The Great American Railroad War, " Dennis Drabelle tells a classic story of corporate greed vs. the power of the pen. The Central Pacific Railroad accepted US Government loans; but, when the loans fell due, the last surviving founder of the railroad...

Examines the Transcontinental Railroad by discussing why it was needed and the immediate and lasting effects it had on the nation as well as the people and places involved.

Features 218 photographs of the construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad.