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The great curved trestle at Secret Town was the largest structure of its type on the railroad. In this remarkable photograph, which shows the Chinese laborers bringing a never ending supply of dirt from the mountainside, the trestle is being filled in to eliminate the fire hazard and avoid replacement of the aging timbers. |
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Only a handful of Chinese, or Celestials as they were often called in the nineteenth century, were in the Americas until gold was discovered in California in 1848. When news of the discovery reached China, many saw it as an opportunity to escape the extreme poverty of the time. Peasant families were often forced to sell one of their children, usually a girl, in order to survive. By paying $40 or by signing a contract to pay $160 for passage, thousands of Celestials were packed into ships for the voyage to the "Golden Mountain" as California was known to them. Lying on their sides in only eighteen inches of space, mortality ran as high as twenty-five percent. Unlike many immigrants who came to stay in America, the goal of many Chinese was to save $300-$400 and return to China to live a life of comfort. This sum of money would allow them to marry and have children, own a large home, wear fine clothes, eat the best foods, have servants, and obtain tutors for their children. Opinions were mixed about these newcomers. The rich valued them as employees because they were willing to work for low wages, kept themselves clean, were dependable, and were not drunk and disorderly on the job. The working class however, feared that they would take their jobs, thus making discrimination rampant. Chinese immigrants could not become citizens or own property. They were often relegated to live in lesser areas of town and work at undesirable jobs. Life was difficult, but by 1865 about 50,000 Chinese had come to California. After the Central Pacific Railroad (CP) started building the railroad eastward from Sacramento, demand for Chinese workers increased tremendously. The CP determined they needed 5,000 workers to build the railroad, but they were only able to recruit 800 whites to do the work. Many of these stayed only long enough to get a free trip to the end of track, and then deserted the CP for the gold fields. As an experiment the CP hired all available Chinese workers, and as a result of the success they sent recruiting agents to Canton, Hong Kong, and Macao. With an average height of 4'10" and weight of 120 pounds, many doubted their ability to handle the heavy rail sections and ties. But handle them they did. So well in fact, that by the time they joined the railroad at Promontory more than nine out of ten CP workers were Chinese, over 11,000 in all. Much of the work they did has become legend. Working through the Sierra Nevada Mountains they were faced with solid granite outcroppings. With pick, shovel, and black powder the Celestial progressed at a rate of only eight inches per day while working around the clock, seven days a week. The tunneled through the granite inward form both ends as well as outward in both directions from a shaft in the middle of the mountain. The winters they spent in the Sierra Nevada were some of the worst on record with over forty feet of snow. Camps and men were buried in the drifts, and some were even swept away by avalanches. On occasion the Chinese workers dug tunnels in the snow to get from their huts to the work site, many did not see daylight for months. At Cape Horn in the Sierra's workers hung suspended in baskets up to 2,000 feet above the American River. From this precarious position the Chinese workers drilled and blasted a roadbed for the railroad without losing a single life. After reaching the Nevada desert they averaged more than one mile of track per day. The desert brought 120 degree temperatures and the alkali dust had many bleeding from the lungs. Though the Chinese worked alongside white workers, they were not treated as equals. White workers were paid $35 a month as well as supplies and meals. In contrast, the Chinese made $25 per month and paid for their own food, supplies, cook, and headman. After a strike by the Celestials, some of this disparity was evened out. When the railroad was completed on May 10, 1869, an eight man Chinese crew was selected to place the last section of rail-a symbol to honor the dedication and hard work of these laborers. A few of the speakers mentioned the invaluable contributions of the Chinese, but for the most part both their contemporaries and history have neglected them. Only in the last two decades has their story really come to be known. For the thousands who died aboard ship or building the railroad, recognition is long past due. |
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