The Search for the Chinese Workers Who Helped Build America

The construction of the Transcontinental Railroad that linked the east and west coasts of the United States is a triumphant tale of tenacity and technological achievement that is studied by every American schoolchild.

Before the railroad was completed in 1869, a traveler wishing to journey or move freight between the east coast and California had three choices: a roughly six-month overland stagecoach journey that was as treacherous and costly as it was time-consuming (you could actually get from San Francisco to Hong Kong by boat as quickly as you could get from San Francisco to New York by land); a nearly 18,000-mile sea voyage that required sailing around Cape Horn on the tip of South America; or a combination ship and land expedition that involved taking a paddle steamer to Panama, Mexico or Nicaragua, crossing overland to the Pacific Ocean, and then boarding another steamer up the Pacific Coast. After the railroad was built, the trip between east and west suddenly shrank to less than a week at a fraction of the cost.