ithin the
areas shaded, and consisted, in all cases, of alternate sections on each
side of the track. The sections retained by the United States were,
however, withdrawn from entry upon filing of the railway survey, and
remained withdrawn until the railway allotment had been made. Regions
thus impeded in their development often became centers of hostility
toward the railroads.]

Between 1866 and 1869 the building of the Union Pacific was the most
picturesque enterprise in America. Across the great plains, the desert,
and the mountains, from Council Bluffs to Sacramento, it was pushed. In
the West, Stanford and his group of California visionaries carried the
burden. The eastern end brought out no single great promoter. Both ends
fought the problem of timber and stone and railroad iron, but most of
all of labor. Stanford finally imported the Chinese coolie for the job.
Civil War veterans and new immigrants did most of the work on the
eastern end. And along the eastern stretches the Indian tribes of the
plains watched the work with jealous eyes. The Pawnee, the Sioux, the
Arapaho, and the Cheyenne saw in the new road the end of a tribal life
based upon wild game.

Severe Indian outbreaks accompanied the construction of the railroad, as
the tribes made their last stand in Wyoming, Colorado, and the Indian
Territory. Before the line was done, the tribes of the plains were under
control in two great concentration camps, in South Dakota and Indian
Territory, and the worst of the Indian fighting in the West was over.

In the spring of 1869 the railroad was finished and a spectacular
celebration was held near Ogden, in Utah Territory. The finishing stroke
was everywhere regarded as national, since not only had Congress given
aid, but the union of the oceans was an object of national ambition.
With the completion, the problem shifted from the exciting risks of
construction and finance to the prosaic duties of paying the bills, and
with the shift came a natural falling-off in enthusiasm.

The Union Pacific was the longest railroad of the sixties, and aroused
the greatest interest. In an economic way it is merely typical of the
speculative expansion of the North that began early in the Civil War and
continued increasingly thereafter. The United States was engaged in a
period of hopeful growth such as has followed every panic. After a few
years of depression, stagnation, and enforced economy, business had
revived about 1861. Con