and building came from Minnesota and Wisconsin,
excepting in the far West, where native lumber was used.

The grading was done to a very large extent by manual labor. It was
before the day of the steam shovel or air drill. Pick and shovel and
wheelbarrow reinforced by teams and scrapers were the means used,
excepting where rock was encountered and then hand drills and black
powder and occasionally nitro-glycerine were relied upon to quarry the
rock which was very much in demand for masonry work.

The graders worked as much as two hundred miles ahead of the track.
They were housed in tents, and all supplies for their sustenance and
material used by them were necessarily hauled from the several
terminal points. This resulted in the employment of a good sized army
of teamsters and freighters. In the buffalo they had a food that,
while cheap, was of the first order, and the number thus utilized was
away up in the thousands.

No pretense was made to ballast the track, as the construction work
was done. The ties were laid on the grade with just enough dirt on
them to keep them in place. Speedy construction was considered of the
first importance and then the ballasting could be done much cheaper
after the track was down.

To a very great extent temporary trestles of timber were used, to be
replaced later by more permanent culverts of stone. In some places
where the piles were thus replaced by masonry, it was necessary to
tear out the stone and put in piles again. The heavy freshets proved
more than the culverts could carry off, and besides the stone work
would wash out much quicker than did piles.

The bridges were mostly Howe wooden truss uncovered, with stone or
wooden abuttments. Where the span was short, wooden trestles on piles
were used.

One reason for deferring the masonry work as well as the ballasting
was the inability to handle the necessary supplies. Every engine and
all the equipment were kept in constant use hauling construction
material to the front.

Notwithstanding what, to the contractor of today, would seem
antiquated and expensive methods, the work progressed and made headway
to an extent that has never since been equalled. It was the immense
army, as high as twelve thousand men at times, that enabled this to be
the case. One-fifth the number of men with modern methods and
labor-saving devices would have been equally efficious.

The expense of hauling water and supplies for the army of men was
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