NARRATOR: Making Tracks.

[WESTERN MUSIC]

In the 1850s, the fastest way to travel overland was by train. But at the time, railroad lines didn't extend all the way across the United States.

Pioneers trying to reach the West had to survive a difficult journey by wagon that could take six months. To unite the country by rail, President Abraham Lincoln granted two companies the opportunity of a lifetime-- to build the first transcontinental railroad.

The Union Pacific Railroad would start from Nebraska, and the Central Pacific from California. The two lines would eventually meet in the middle.

The companies were promised huge plots of land and thousands of dollars for each mile of track they laid. The race was on to make a fortune.

[SIDE CONVERSATIONS]

Starting in Sacramento, California, the Central Pacific Railroad faced an enormous hurdle. Its track had to pass through the towering Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. The mountains posed a great challenge for engineers. But it wasn't the engineers who were laying the track.

Laborers from Ireland and China did most of the hard work for low pay. They faced harsh conditions, blasting through mountains and tunneling through rocky terrain.

In the East, the Union Pacific Railroad workers were rushing ahead on the flat plains. But their path was intruding on other people's land.

[NATIVE AMERICAN MUSIC]

This was home to the Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapaho, and many other American Indian tribes. To conquer the Western frontier, the United States government forced American Indians off their land. And the Buffalo the Native Americans depended on for food, clothing, and shelter were being hunted to extinction by the newcomers.

For Native Americans, the railroad didn't represent progress. It meant the destruction of their way of life. Many tried to halt the railroad's construction, but their resistance couldn't stop America's westward expansion. The push was on.

The meeting point for the two railroads was set in Promontory Summit, Utah. As the railroads drew closer, laborers were pushed to work faster. Even more money was now being awarded for each mile of completed track.

Setting a historic record, Chinese workers lay 10 miles of track in a single day. It was their speed that propelled the Central Pacific to reach the finish line first.

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

On May 10, 1869, the final golden spike was hammered into the track, completing the world's first transcontinental railroad a journey across the country that had taken six months by wagon can now be made in seven days.

And along the route, thousands of acres of land were open to settlers who would forever change the American West.

[WESTERN MUSIC]