Transcontinental Railroad

Railroad owners wanted more people to settle on the Great Plains because...

• farmers would use the railroads to ship products to markets in the cities
• they needed more people to build railroad tracks
• they needed sharecroppers to farm the land owned by the railroads
• settlers would grow cotton and ship it to the south

By the summer of 1867, the Union Pacific was in Wyoming, covering far more ground than the Central Pacific. The Central Pacific broke through the mountains in late June, which meant the hard part was finally behind them. Both companies headed toward Salt Lake City, while cutting many corners in their race to get ahead. They built shoddy bridges or sections of track that had to be rebuilt later.

Which idea is BEST supported by this paragraph?

• Promoting competition between the two railroad companies caused the Union Pacific to reveal itself as the superior railroad company

• Advocating competition between the two railroad companies while failing to account for different geographic features resulted in resentful feelings.

• Encouraging competition between the two railroad companies resulted in a finished product that was poor quality.

• Nurturing competition between the two railroad companies was clearly a major mistake and caused humiliation for the government for years.

Workers who built the railroads were mainly

• homesteaders and cowboys
• Chinese and Irish
• Russian and Irish
• Mexican and Chinese

The purpose of the Homestead Act was to develop the West

• True
• False

On what day did the transcontinental railroad completed?

• On May 1862

• On May 1865

• On May 1869

• On May 1868

What continent was the United States trying to expand to in order to help trade?

• South America
• Asia
• Europe
• Africa

The ________________ were the major mountain range that the railroad had to be built through.

• Sierra Nevada
• Rocky Mountains
• Cascade Mountains
• Appalachian Mountains

Who was the man that came up with the idea to build the transcontinental railroad?

• Leland Stanford
• Charlie Crocker
• George Washington
• Theodore Judah

1.  What was the earliest type of guided rail transport?

• Wagonway
• Cartway
• Carriageway
• Hundway