The newly-acquired lands of the American West mostly attracted hardscrabble explorers or men down on their luck; neither one arriving in numbers large enough to make significant settlements. That all changed with the discovery of gold in California, which brought a tidal wave of adventurers, prospectors and aspiring businessmen of all stripes. They just needed a quicker route from the east coast and the Mississippi river states: during the first several decades the only routes were by horse through Indian country or by water ferries that sometimes took six months to complete the voyage. What was needed was an iron horse, the railroad.

On this day, June 4, in 1869, in a show of the capabilities of the new coast-to-coast rail line the promotional Transcontinental Express train completed a New York to San Francisco trip in 83 hours and 39 minutes, a trip taking weeks or months before.

The rail line was planned and built as a meeting between the Union Pacific railroad running out of the east coast and the Central Pacific railroad from Sacramento. The two met at Promontory, Utah, with a large and elaborate ceremony including copious amounts of champagne and the driving in of a golden spike into the last tie between the rails.