utfit resolved it should be
done. Waiting until there were but fourteen miles for them to lay,
they started in and laid ten miles and two hundred feet from seven
A.M. to seven P.M., using four thousand men in the operation. And then
the Union Pacific outfit was mad. They claimed if they had massed
their forces, made special preparation, etc., they could do better
than their competitors, but they could not prove it for there was no
more track to lay.

The Central Pacific people ran their grade east of Ogden to Echo
Canon, this when their completed line was only built to the vicinity
of Wadsworth, Nev. The Union Pacific Railroad located their line to
the California State line and had their graders at work as far west as
Humboldt Wells, Nev., four hundred and sixty miles west of Ogden. This
line west of Promontory was never built, however, and it is said that
one million dollars was expended in this way. As it was the Central
Pacific had their grade established some eighty miles east of
Promontory Point, thirty miles east of Ogden, and this when the Union
Pacific were laying their completed track within a mile of and
parallel to their grade. The prize was so great that every nerve was
strained on the part of both contestants as to who should push their
track the further. The advantages were about equal. The Central
Pacific were somewhat nearer their base of supplies, their laborers
were the quiet, orderly, and easily managed Chinese and then they were
in comparatively good financial shape. The Union Pacific, though
farther from their base of supplies, were in railroad communication
with the points of manufacture, their men, while turbulent and hard to
control, were enthusiastic and worth three to one of the opposing
forces. They were well paid, well housed and well fed, and were
handled by men who had as a rule, army experience back of them and
who certainly were "bosses" in the best and fullest sense. During the
winter of 1868-1869 the advantage was with the Central Pacific
Company. Their line across the Sierras was fully protected by snow
sheds and they only met with one week's suspension of business from
snow troubles during the whole winter, while the Union Pacific were
blocked between Cheyenne and Green River for four long months. The
rate of construction grew rapidly. During 1864 there were about two
hundred men employed on the grading and track-laying. While it took
one year to complete the first forty miles, the s