July 2012 marks the 150th anniversary of a critical piece of legislation that literally established the foundational transportation system of the United States. The first Pacific Railway Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on July 1, 1862 and established the Union Pacific Railroad Company to build the first transcontinental railroad, west from the Missouri River. The Central Pacific Railroad was also authorized to lay railroad track from the Pacific Ocean and moving east.

The question of “internal improvements” to the country’s transportation system was constantly before Congress in the 19th century. In the 1850s Congress commissioned several topographical surveys to determine the best route for a railroad, but private corporations were reluctant to undertake the task without Federal assistance. In 1862 Congress passed the first Pacific Railway Act, which designated the 32nd parallel as the initial transcontinental route and awarded alternating 10 mile sections of land to both railroads along their lines. The sale of which was supposed to offset construction costs.

Union Pacific broke ground at 7th Street and Capitol Avenue in Omaha in 1863 and, at the height of construction, employed 10,000 Irish, German, and Italian immigrants, as well as thousands of Civil War veterans. Central Pacific employed over 10,000 Chinese workers and began laying track from Sacramento, California. On May 10, 1869, in a ceremony at Promontory Summit, Utah, the last rails were laid and the last spike driven connecting the eastern and western coasts of the United States.

In a special exhibition from July 1-31, 2012, The Durham Museum will display three pages of the 1862 Pacific Railway Act on loan from the National Archives, alongside several other railroad artifacts from Omaha’s own Byron Reed Collection. “The National Archives and Records Administration regards the Act as one of 100 “milestone documents” in our nation’s history, and it has obviously had a momentous impact in the history and growth of our city,” said Christi Janssen, The Durham Museum’s executive director. “To have the Pacific Railway Act here on July 1, exactly 150 years after it was signed into law and created Union Pacific, is truly extraordinary.”

The Byron Reed artifacts have never before been exhibited. Highlights will include Reed’s license to be a commercial broker in Omaha, signed 1862; a letter from former Omaha mayor George Armstrong to Byron Reed during the former’s service in the Civil War inquiring about Union Pacific’s progress in laying railroad track and the growth of Omaha; and, an 1862 letter to U.S. Navy flag officer A.W. Foote from James Buchanan Eads, who oversaw design and construction of the Union’s iron clad naval vessels during the Civil War, and who later in life constructed the first road and rail bridge across the Mississippi River.

This historic display is made possible thanks to the generosity of the Union Pacific Corporation.

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