National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

RAILROAD EXPLORER Before the transcontinental railroad, it took four to six months to cross the United States. People had to either travel by ship Go West! around South America or travel by wagon across the country. The transcontinental railroad made it possible for people, as well as fruits and vegetables, clothing, and other goods, to move at much faster speeds.

1869 East to West: Construction on 1862 the transcontinental railroad is Pacific Railroad Act: completed connecting the east Abraham Lincoln and and west coasts. Congress approve construction of the transcontinental railroad.

JUNIOR RANGER 1861 1890 Tapping Out the Code: Visit a Park: The transcontinental telegraph line uses Morse People take vacations by train to LEARN • • C code to send messages between the east and west E O R N see new national parks in the west, O N L E C coasts. P T X such as Yosemite. Get Ready to E

N E Civil War Begins: Northern states and southern A C T I I O V N R states fight over slavery. This slows progress on A S E Show What You Know Ride the Rails! L P A R K the railroad. The war ends in 1865. Many events happened before the transcontinental railroad was built. With this book in your hands, you are ready to become a Railroad Explorer. This book will teach 1850 1. Brigham Young and the first you about the transcontinental railroad, which Indian Wars Begin: Mormon settlers arrived in helped link the United States from coast to coast. As the government takes land away from Native Americans and moves them onto reservations, ______. Follow the directions below: wars break out and continue into the 1890s.

1. Complete this book. 2. ______Arctic 1848 Do your best to finish as much as you can. was discovered in California in 1848. Gold Rush! Many Subarctic 2. Check your work. people travel by wagon Northwest Show a ranger, a teacher, or another adult to California when gold Coast 3. The ______what you completed. is discovered there. were conflicts between tribes and Plateau 3. Become a Railroad Explorer. the government as the government When you are done, fill out the pledge in took tribal lands and moved Native Great Plains Northeast the back of this book. Basin Americans to reservations. California 1826 1841 First American Southeast Railroad: Oregon Trail: Wagons A horse-drawn begin taking people 4. Beginning in 1861, northern and Southwest Use the map to fill out the statement below. railroad opens in west in large numbers. 1847 southern states fought over slavery Massachusetts. Mormon Pioneers: during the ______. To escape religious My name is ______. discrimination, Mormons Check your answers I am ______years old. I am completing this book on lands travel by wagon to Utah’s on the back cover. Great Salt Lake Valley and traditionally associated with the ______tribes. call it home. Many people worked to build the transcontinental Could You Build a Railroad? Meet the railroad. Workers faced bad weather, dangerous work, Draw a line from the tool to its purpose. Check your answers on the back cover. long hours, and difficult tasks, such as lifting heavy iron rails, driving spikes, and tunneling through mountains. Despite these hazards, a job meant earning money and Builders gave workers a chance for a better life. 1. First the land had to b e surveyed, or investigated, to determine if tunnels or bridges would be necessary. What tool did the surveyors use? fishplates:connect the 2. The graders were the first group of rails together workers out on the railroad. If they had to ties: support the rails create a tunnel, what tool would they use to drill holes for blasting through rock?

Civil War Veterans and Freed Slaves 3. Graders would create the railroad bed. Union, Confederate, and black What tool did they use to remove large Americans (many of them freed amounts of rock, dirt, and debris? Hint: rock drill: used to create a slaves) worked to build the Union They also needed a horse to use hole that would be filled Pacific Railroad. When the war maul: used to drive this tool. with explosive powder; ended, the railroad provided jobs. spikes into the ties; a once ignited, this powder Men could work as surveyors, type of would blow up rock to graders, or track layers. 4. The track layers followed the graders. What did the track layers put down to make way for construction; support the rails? one or two men would spikes: hold the rails to the ties drive this drill into rock with a sledgehammer 5. When the ties were in place, the railroad line looked like a giant ladder. What did track layers put on top of the ties? Thinking Question

How far would you move for a 6. What attached the rails to each other? job? What type of railroad work is interesting to you? 7. For the last step, what two objects did railroad workers use to attach the rails ______to the ties? Hint: One tool was used for Courtesy of J. Willard Marriott Library University of Utah rail: guides the trai n’s wheels ______pounding. European Immigrants Mormon Settlers Many Irish, German, and other As the railroad went through Utah, ______European immigrants worked Mormons went to work for the ______for the as railroad because they knew the land ______graders who leveled the earth so so well. They worked as surveyors that tracks could be built across who recorded the locations of rivers, ______the Great Plains. mountains, and valleys. ______KNOW U ? transit: used to Chinese Immigrants ______O survey the land Due to their engineering and ______horse-drawn buck scraper: Y The “clickety clack” sound explosives experience, Chinese used to level the ground; ______you used to hear when a train immigrants did the dangerous work a horse pulled the bucket D of blasting through the Sierra ______forward to move dirt and rock I came down the track was due to the joints that were held Mountains, which had some of the ______D hardest rock imaginable. Sometimes together by the fishplates. ______workers could only tunnel through eight inches of solid granite a day. ______Where Have Lost Homelands All the Bison Gone?

Native Americans were the first people to live in America. The transcontinental railroad was built through Native Native Americans relied on bison for food, clothing, and There were hundreds of tribes throughout the United American lands. The government determined the railroad shelter. They even made tools out of bison bones and States. Each tribe had its own customs and language. route, despite treaties that said the land belonged to the horns. No part of the animal was wasted. When settlers started moving west, there were conflicts Native Americans. about who owned the land. When the transcontinental railroad was built, bison Native Americans tried to resist these changes. They fought began to scatter. People shot the animals for sport. Herds for their lands, destroyed tracks, and derailed trains. began to get smaller and smaller. Before the railroad, Eventually, the government sent troops to remove them there were 60 million bison in North America. By the late from their traditional lands to reservations. 1800s, the number was less than 1,000.

Thinking Question Thinking Question

The United States government broke its promise Native Americans needed bison to survive. Many when it took back land that was promised to Native people faced starvation without the bison. Have Americans. Has anyone ever broken a promise to you ever been hungry? How would you survive if you? How did it make you feel? you lost your food supply?

______

______Map showing range history ______of bison in North America Original range Pre-1800: 60,000,000 Bison ______Range as of 1870: 5,500,000 Bison Range as of 1889: 541 Bison

B Hide Match the bison parts to their uses by writing the correct letter in the blank.

_____ Spoons, scoops, and cups C Sinew (fibers that _____ Bow string and thread ____ tie bones to muscle) Clothing, blankets, tipi covers _____ A Horns Fuel to burn in fires

_____ Canteens, water holders E Bones D Stomach and Bladder _____ Tools and weapons

F Dried Grassy Check your answers Key Events in the Indian Wars Dung or “Buffalo on the back cover. 1864 1867 1876 1890 Sand Creek Massacre: Medicine Lodge Treaty Battle of the Little Wounded Knee Massacre: Government forces attack (The Reservation Act): Bighorn: In response to This was a battle between a Cheyenne and Arapaho This peace agreement sets the ongoing loss of land, federal troops and American encampment along up reservations for the the Lakota, Northern Indians of the Lakota tribe. Sand Creek. tribes. Though the treaty is Cheyenne, and Arapaho adopted, Congress soon fight and defeat the breaks the treaty to make U.S. Army’s 7th reservations smaller. Cavalry Regiment. Let’s Connect the U.S. Across Rivers and Through Mountains

Trace the line from New York The people building City to . What the railroad had many major cities are on this route? challenges. Can you identify some of these ______challenges on the map? ______Check the boxes of the ones you find. ______q The Central Lowlands ______and the Great Plains ______extend from the over 500 ______miles to the eastern base of the Black Hills. During the summer months, this area is hot and very dry. In the winter, it can be NOW very cold. K ? q The Black Hills of U Wyoming, now called OTo ride the railroad from the Laramie Mountains, YNew York City to San Francisco are part of the Rocky took about a week and covered D Mountains. Can you I nearly 3,400 miles. imagine building a railroad over a D mountain? q The high rolling plains of the Wyoming Basin challenged builders to find the flattest route.

q Crossing the Wasatch Mountains, Union Pacific Railroad workers built trestles workers encountered and used earthen structures to difficult terrain. This cross large ravines, which were required building among the biggest challenges tunnels to complete the the builders faced. transcontinental railroad in Utah. q The Civil War q Promontory Summit is where the Union q The railroad crossed delayed construction. Pacific Railroad met the Central Pacific American Indian q Railroad builders Railroad. This is where builders drove a homelands. decided to go around final spike to connect the country by rail. the Great Salt Lake, a body of water about eighty miles in length. q In the Sierra Nevada Mountains, builders found heavy snow, hard granite rock, and steep ravines. Steam locomotives are big machines that do a simple job. They make steam. The Choo Choo! needs fuel (wood or coal), heat, and water to make steam. This steam provides all the power necessary to move an enormous train.

Follow the numbers to see what happens inside a steam-powered locomotive. KNOW U ? O Y Before the telegraph line, D which was completed in 1861, I the only way to send a message Got the Message? Courtesy Steamtown National Historic Site

D across the United States was by

Pony Express. Horseback riders

Morse code is made of dots and dashes that are tapped out in short and Tender Firebox Boiler Pistons 1 2 3 4 would race across the United States. long signals. These signals stand for individual letters and numbers. Once The tender is attached One person, called the Water is pumped into The steam is then directed Still, it took them ten days the transcontinental railroad was built, railroad workers used the telegraph to the engine and carries “fireman,” shovels fuel the locomotive’s boiler. through pipes to the to take a message from to communicate train arrival and departure times. This allowed the the water and fuel that into the locomotive’s As the water warms, pistons that move the Missouri to California. railroads to safely schedule more trains to move people and goods quickly. powers the locomotive. firebox, where a small steam is produced. wheels and pull the train. fire burns the fuel and produces a lot of heat!

New York San Francisco KNOW U ? O Y At Promontory Summit, May 10, 1869, a As steam is released from the crowd gathered to honor the completion D exhaust, it makes a “choo” of the transcontinental railroad. After I sound. This is a different sound ceremoniously tapping a golden spike and then removing it, workers drove a D from the train’s warning whistle. Try Morse Code

final iron spike into the last tie. Can you decipher this message in Morse code? Try releasing the sound “choo” Telegraph wires had been attached from your mouth. See how high, Each town used to have its to both the spike and the maul. This low, long, and short you can own time based on local allowed reporters in cities and towns ______make the sound. sunrise and sunset. Can you across the nation to hear the exact imagine the confusion? If it is 8 AM in San Francisco, moment our country was connected To solve this problem, railroads what time is it in New York? by rail. To see the location where the began using time zones in railroad was completed, visit Golden ______the 1870s. In 1883, time zones Spike National Historical Park. were adopted nationwide. Check your answer on the back cover. Check your answer on the back cover. Buy a House by Mail, Delivered by Rail All Aboard! Can you match each item with the state it comes from? STEA Content Ideas – Transportation, Trade, and Commerce Not long after the transcontinental railroad [no answer key – just an opportunity for kids to hunt and find] California was completed, many people left their homes in Europe in search of a better life in the United States. They traveled by ship to join family or Minnesota friends already living here. Once immigrants A House by Rail through the Mail? arrived on the east coast, they would continue Oranges from Florida. Raisins from California. Flour from Minnesota. Cloth from Massachusetts. their journey by train. Often new immigrants Cheese from Wisconsin. A house from Ohio? Before railroads, moving products long distancesFlorida was not would go from cities to farms packed into Cloth immigrant cars. possible.Before Just railroads, about moving everything products you ate long and drank, distances was and m ost of what you wore and used in your home, was madedifficult. or built Most within miles people got their of yourfood, home.clothing, building supplies, and other goods within a few miles of their homes. Massachusetts And then came the railroad…and the development of delivering items by mailWith the ever expanding railroad network came the -order. possibility of ordering nearly anything by mail. Railway post Railwayoffice Post cars Office picked cars up picked up and delivered mail and delivered mail to every community to every community along the railroadWisconsin line, and then delivered italong the railroad to just line. about This made anywhere it possible in the to deliver country. This meant a shop on Long Island, New York Imagine what it would be like to move from your home goods to nearly anywhere in the country. could sell to anyone in the country – without a computer or a telephone! and travel to live in another place. Draw one item you Flour would need on your journey. Sears & Roebuck and Montgomery Ward offered catalogues Ohio Searsfilled & Roebuck with everything and Montgomery from socks Ward offered cataloguesand shirts, to dresses and filled with everything from socks and shirts to dressescoats, to to topcoats dishes and dining to dishes room and dining tables. People room could tables. mail Orders for beds to complete bedroom suites, evenorder a complete house that a bed to complete a bedroom just needed suite. assembling, They could even could be ordered. Yes, you could order a house by select a house from a catalogue, order it by mail, and it mailwould that arriv arriveed by by train. train! Then they just followed the directions to put it together. How many items can you find that could be ordered by mail and arrive at your town by train? Plan a Trip Use the railroad flyer to help you Items Moved by Rail: How many can you find? Word List: calculate the answers to these questions. C O U C H C M A T T R E S S O C H A I N S B bag, bathtub, bed, How much would it cost to travel blankets, books, from Chicago to Sacramento? M L S H I R T U C H O M F L O W E R S A T L bridles, butter, A I R W H I T E F L O U R S S C T A B L E A candy, cereal, ______chains, clock, G V I O L I N C H A F E Y E G L A S S E S N clothes, couch, Chicago to Eventually, people traveled by train for vacations. The A E I O I L T R U S S E S N S O S W H I P K double boilers, Council Bluffs/Omaha $ 42.00 dresser, flowers, railroad opened a new Z S P I C E S R T F H Q U I L T L E O W I E How much would it cost to travel flour, glasses, hair St. Louis to part of the United States from St. Louis to Promontory? I E I E R C A N D Y I S W H S H E E T S A T curlers, herbs, Council Bluffs/Omaha $ 20.00 to a variety of people. N I E T B E D F L O N U V A S E R T T A N S hoe, honey, Travelers would spot a horses, house, ______Council Bluffs/Omaha E B S B L E D V I O G L A S S S S S L I O B railroad flyer, dream about leggings, lock, to Promontory $ 81.50 where they wanted to go, N R M M A I L H O E L T R U M P E T T R I O lumber, magazine, mail, mattress, Council Bluffs/Omaha choose a destination, and C I H O R S E S H O E S Y C B U T T E R L O How much would it cost to travel nuts, oil, pans, to Sacramento $ 131.50 then purchase a ticket. E D R E S S E R O S S K B A T H T U B A G K from Chicago to Council Bluffs/Omaha piano, pies, quilt, Often the destinations and back to Chicago? C L T E P B O A U C E R E A L R E D S H U S raisins, roof were places of interest that L E G G I N G S S R A I S I N S E B O P I F sheets, shingles, people heard about, such ______O P I N K G B A E H A I R C U R L E R S T L shirt, shoes, as tourist attractions or shovels, sink, Check your answers national parks. C S H H E R B S L U M B E R T A M E P I A O spices, spikes, on the back cover. K P A N S O H O N E Y H O N S E Y S S N R U sweets, table, tar, D O U B L E B O I L E R S H O V E L S K H R trumpet, vase violin, white flour

Railroad Safety JUNIOR Need to Cross the Tracks? RANGER Always expect a train. Look both ways before crossing. Never walk near railroad tracks, or in areas that are not designated railroad crossings. Never cross the tracks when the signal lights are flashing and the safety gates are lowered. Avoid distractions including loud music, texting, or talking on a phone near railroads. Only cross the tracks at railroad crossings, located where streets intersect the tracks. Study this picture. Can you circle two safe behaviors and cross out two unsafe behaviors? LEARN • • C E O Check your answers on the back cover. R N O N L E C P T X

E

N E A C T I I O V N R A S E L P A R K

Railroad Explorer Pledge

I ______(print your name) promise to stop, look, and listen at railroad crossings. I also promise to teach others about the ways the transcontinental railroad changed the United States and the technology and cultures that contributed to its construction.

I will also continue to explore my national parks by traveling throughout the country and researching the history of the different sites I visit.

Congratulations! You are now a Junior Ranger Railroad Explorer.

______

Signature Date

Find your next adventure at nps.gov/kids Answer Key Thank You Go West! 1. Utah’s Great Salt Lake Valley This Junior Ranger Explorer Book on the 2. Gold 3. Indian Wars 4. Civil War transcontinental railroad was produced by the National Park Service with support Could You Build a Railroad from the Union Pacific Railroad 1. Transit 2. Rock drill 3. Horse-drawn and the National Park Foundation. buck scraper 4. Ties 5. Rails 6. Fishplates 7. Maul and spikes

Where Have All the Bison Gone? A, C, B, F, D, E

Choo Choo! 11 AM

Got the Message? Golden Spike

All Aboard! $173.50, $101.50, $84

Buy a House by Mail, Delivered by Rail Orange: Florida, Raisins: California, Flour: Minnesota, Cloth: Massachusetts, Cheese: Wisconsin, House: Ohio

Railroad Safety SAFE: The family with the dog is waiting at the railroad crossing for the train to pass.

SAFE: The woman in the dress is also waiting at the railroad crossing for the train to pass.

UNSAFE: The boy with the headphones is walking along the railroad tracks and does not hear or see the train.

UNSAFE: The person on the bicycle is crossing the tracks when the signal lights are flashing and the safety gates are lowered.