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Worksheets

Transcontinental Railroad

Total questions: 16

Worksheet time: 32mins

Name
Class
Date
1.

What was the 2nd type of communication, which took 10 days, and used horses?

a)

Pony Express

b)

Overland Mail Express

c)

Transcontinental Railroad

d)

FedEx

e)

Telegraph

2.

What type of communication took 24 days, and began in 1857?

a)

Overland Mail Company

b)

Pony Express

c)

Transcontinental Railroad

d)

Telegraph

e)

E-mail

3.

Who did California want to communicate with?

a)

Western U.S.

b)

China

c)

Canada

d)

Europe

e)

Eastern U.S.

4.

What was the 3rd type of communication that took only a few minutes?

a)

Telegraph

b)

Overland Mail Company

c)

Pony Express

d)

Transcontinental Railroad

e)

Postmates

5.

Which railroad company hired mostly Irish immigrant and Civil War soldiers?

a)

Union Pacific

b)

Central Pacific

6.

Which railroad company used mostly Chinese immigrant workers?

a)

Central Pacific

b)

Union Pacific

7.

What was NOT a challenge of building the railroad?

a)

They had to work fast in dangerous conditions

b)

They had to blast tunnels through the Sierra Nevadas

c)

There were few workers because of the Civil War in the U.S.

d)

The people did not want the railroad to be built.

8.

What was the name of the wheat farmer in the Central Valley, who was the #1 wheat farmer in the world?

a)

John Bidwell

b)

Theodore Judah

c)

Samuel Morse

d)

Leland Stanford

9.

What was the name of the herbalist who came to California looking for gold?

a)

Yee Fung Cheung

b)

Robert E. Lee

c)

Leland Stanford

d)

Benjamin Franklin

10.

Which man was one of the Big Four?

a)

Leland Stanford

b)

Theodore Judah

c)

John Butterfield

d)

Luther Burbank

11.

What was Luther Burbank known for?

a)

He was a scientist who developed new and better plants.

b)

He hammered in the golden spike.

c)

He was one of the Big Four.

d)

He discovered electricity.

12.

Who planned and engineered the transcontinental railroad?

a)

Theodore Judah

b)

Mark Hopkins

c)

Collis P. Huntington

d)

Charles Crocker

13.

What is John Butterfield remembered for?

a)

He contributed to growth in CA because of the stagecoach that carried mail.

b)

He discovered the first pieces of gold.

c)

He engineered the railroad.

d)

He financed the transcontinental railroad.

14.

What was the name of the place where violence occurred between the farmers and railroad company because of their disagreement over the price of land?

a)

Mussel Slough

b)

Promontory, UT

c)

Council Bluffs, IA

d)

Sacramento, CA

e)

Rancho Cucamonga, CA

15.

Who was the "Big Four"?

a)

The group who owned the Central Pacific R.R.

b)

The four men who built the railroad.

c)

Farmers who built canals to irrigate their crops.

d)

A group of herbalists who developed healing medicines.

16.

Why was it hard to find American workers to build the transcontinental railroad?

a)

The Civil War was happening at the same time.

b)

The pay was too low.

c)

Everyone already had jobs.

d)

Not many people were skilled laborers, so they did not know how to build a railroad.