Theodore Judah, a railroad surveyor, talked to Congress about the idea of building a railroad that would connect the east to the west.
The Transcontinental Railroad was a contiguous railroad reaching from San Francisco Bay to Central Bluffs, Missouri. Its main purpose was to connect the state of California to the rest of the Union during the Civil War. The railroad was built by three individual companies, the Western Pacific Railroad Company, the Central Pacific Railroad Company, and the Union Pacific Railroad Company. It took a total of six years to finish, from 1863 to 1869. On May, 10, 1869, in Tremonton, Utah, the last spike was pounded in and the Transcontinental Railroad was finished.
The key men involved with the building of the railroad were Theodore Judah, Grenville Dodge, Abraham Lincoln, Collis P. Huntington, Thomas C. Durant, Leland Stanford, Oakes Ames, and Charles