The Transcontinental Railroad was both a means to make California’s gold more accessible and the dream of Abraham Lincoln, who saw it as the ultimate way to unify a divided nation! Two companies, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads took up the challenge in 1862, the UP working west from Omaha, Nebraska and the CP working east from Sacramento. Much of the labor was fueled by underpaid immigrants, Irish on the Union Pacific side and Chinese on the Central Pacific Side, and the two companies competed fiercely with each other to lay the most tracks! Both companies held their official joining ceremony in May of 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah, by driving a Golden Spike into the rails!