Legends of the Old West - HELL ON WHEELS Ep. 6 | “Golden Spike”

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

The race is finally over as both railroads make it to Promontory Summit. On May 10, 1869, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific meet in a massive celebration. But in the aftermath, Thomas Durant�...�s financial scheme is revealed and creates a major scandal. Meanwhile, with the nation now linked together, people begin to settle the west in record numbers, and alter the country forever.  Thanks to our sponsor, HelloFresh! To get started, check out our plan: HelloFresh.com/legends10fm Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial. For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. On YouTube, subscribe to LEGENDS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 At the start of the 1860s, the thought of a railroad running from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean seemed like an impossible dream. But by the end of the decade, that dream was on the verge of coming true. It took a bloody and costly civil war to finally put the dream into motion. President Abraham Lincoln saw the importance of railroads to the Union cause, and he convinced Congress to allocate funds for a nationwide track. Throughout the back half of the 1860s, two railroad companies, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific, laid
Starting point is 00:00:45 rails across America. They traversed prairies, mountains, and deserts. They blasted tunnels through granite, built bridges over rivers, and survived Native American attacks. They lived through blistering heat, freezing cold, sand-blasting dust storms, and whiteout blizzards. And for the Union Pacific workers, most of them anyway, they lived through hell-on-wheels towns.
Starting point is 00:01:11 In the town of Echo, Utah, where Echo Canyon turns into Weber Canyon, it was said that seven skeletons were found under one saloon when the Union Pacific left town. By May of 1869, more than 1,500 miles of track had been laid. Tens of thousands of Chinese, Irish, and American workers hammered millions of iron spikes into place. Now, they knew it was only a matter of days until the final spike would be hammered home. But it was still a race.
Starting point is 00:01:43 The Union Pacific approached the final meeting spot of Promontory Summit, Utah from the east. The Central Pacific approached from the west. There were just a couple miles of open ground between the two railroads, and they both wanted to claim the land by being the first to lay tracks on it. Whichever railroad could build a siding first, a short track that ran parallel to the main line, it could claim the rights to the land. The claim would give the winning railroad the legal ability to manage operations, set fees and control future development.
Starting point is 00:02:21 And if the winner could also build a Y track, its position would be even stronger. A Y track was a triangular junction of rails that allowed a locomotive to turn around without a turntable. The Central Pacific had already negotiated a deal to give it eventual control over the all-important town of Ogden, Utah. In the most basic terms, Ogden would be the business headquarters of the new completed railroad. But since Promontory Summit was the ceremonial junction of the two railroads, the one everyone would know and celebrate, it still held immense power. Both railroads wanted it.
Starting point is 00:03:02 Charles Crocker of the Central Pacific made his move. He ordered a special construction train to be loaded with supplies, and he assembled a crew of seasoned Chinese workers. The plan was to send James Strobridge, the Central Pacific superintendent and the Chinese crew out on May 10th and begin construction on the Siding and Wye track in the pre-dawn hours. Hopefully they could finish the work before the Union Pacific learned of the attempt. But Crocker wasn't the first person with the idea.
Starting point is 00:03:34 Unfortunately for him, he was the second. On the night of May 9th, Grenville Dodge of the Union Pacific sent his crews to do the same thing. They worked all night under lantern light, and when the Central Pacific crew showed up the next morning before dawn, the Union Pacific's siding and wide track were complete. The UP men stood alongside their finished work, grinning and laughing at the thwarted Californians. The question of who won the great race to build the transcontinental railroad
Starting point is 00:04:04 would never really be answered. It was too big and too broad. But at the very end, the Union Pacific managed to snag one final victory by claiming the last patch of ground before the big golden spike ceremony. from Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season is Hell on Wheels, the epic story of the transcontinental railroad. Despite countless hardships and obstacles, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific did what many thought was impossible,
Starting point is 00:04:37 they connected the American nation by rail. This is episode six, Golden Age. The Black Barrel Media is here to help you and your family make the most of the time The Union Pacific and the Central Pacific did what many thought was impossible. They connected the American nation by rail. This is episode 6, Golden Spike. When the sun rose on May 10, 1869, the first transcontinental railroad was a few hours away from being finished. Over the last few days, people had poured into Northern Utah for the celebrations. Excitement built across the country
Starting point is 00:05:15 as trains loaded with dignitaries, executives, and reporters headed west to Promontory Summit to witness the ceremony. The triumphal moment was supposed to happen on May 8th, but true to form, the Union Pacific suffered one last delay. On the morning of May 6th, a Union Pacific train approached an isolated outpost called Piedmont, Wyoming. Piedmont was a tie-cutting camp nestled in the foothills just east of the Utah border. And as the train approached, trouble brewed in camp.
Starting point is 00:05:49 Word passed that a special guest was in the lead car. His presence fueled anger. A mob of around 300 laborers armed themselves and waited for the train to pull in. They had a score to settle. For months, the men had worked without pay. And now they wanted to confront the man who had withheld their wages, Vice President of the Union Pacific, Thomas Durant. Durant wasn't the only important man in the lead car. He was accompanied by John Duffy,
Starting point is 00:06:22 the railroad company's director. The two men were on their way to promontory for the big celebration. But as the train neared Piedmont, it jolted to a stop. Durrant and Duffy, as well as other passengers on the train, looked out the windows and were shocked to see railroad ties had been piled on the tracks to block the way. Then the gunshots started. Bullets splintered the wood panel siding of the train cars, shattered windows, and sparked as they
Starting point is 00:06:50 hit metal. Passengers who were able to glance outside saw a mob of disgruntled workers headed their way. In no time at all, the mob had uncoupled Durant's private car from the rest of the train, locked the switches, and waved the remaining cars down the track without their prestigious passengers. Durant's private car from the rest of the train locked the switches and waved the remaining cars down the track without their prestigious passengers. Durant stormed to the door of his car and demanded answers from the mob. The mob's spokesman said they wanted what they were owed, more than $200,000. The railroad executives would not be allowed to leave until the workers received their
Starting point is 00:07:24 pay. Durant said he didn't have that much cash on him, but he sympathized with their plight. The workers were serious about their demands. They seized Durant and escorted him at gunpoint to a nearby telegraph office. There, Durant sent two wires. One wire went to Oliver Ames in Boston, the Union Pacific's acting president, and begged for cash. The second went to Grenville Dodge, who was in Echo City, Utah, and pleaded for help. Dodge's first instinct was to call in the military. He telegraphed nearby Fort Bridger
Starting point is 00:08:00 and requested soldiers to free Durant and the others, but the message was intercepted. The sympathetic Piedmont telegraph operator passed the message to the workers. The workers sent a reply to Dodge. If troops show up, the hostages will suffer. And if the workers' demands weren't met within 24 hours, they would launch a general strike
Starting point is 00:08:22 stretching from Omaha to Ogden. Dodge scrambled to contain the situation. He sent telegrams to Oliver Ames and demanded an immediate $50,000 as a gesture to calm the men. Dodge warned that if the company delayed, things would spiral out of control. So close to the end, a strike would be a disaster for the Union Pacific. Oliver Ames and his brother Oakes hurried to raise the money. Later reports suggested Durant eventually turned over about $250,000 to the workers.
Starting point is 00:08:59 The Union Pacific avoided a strike, but the truth of any situation involving Thomas Durant was murky. Shortly after the supposed crisis was averted, Grenville Dodge and Oliver Ames became suspicious. They wondered if Durant had orchestrated the whole thing himself. As it turned out, the rebellious workers were largely employed by Davis and Associates, a contractor that was deeply tied to Durant's financial interests. Dodge and Ames suspected that Durant had engineered the hostage crisis to force the Union Pacific to pay off contracts that benefited him personally. The workers probably received some of the money,
Starting point is 00:09:40 but it would surprise no one if Durant kept some of the cash for himself. Whatever the truth was, Durant and Duffy were freed and their train continued west toward the big ceremony at Promontory Summit. By the late morning of May 10, 1869, the celebration at Promontory Summit was ready to begin. Two gleaming locomotives sat on the track facing each other, the Central Pacific's Jupiter and the Union Pacific's No. 119. Each locomotive's engineer sat proudly on top of his engine as steam hissed from the valves. Dignitaries, executives, reporters, and workers gathered for the show, and telegraph operators waited to spread the news across the nation.
Starting point is 00:10:31 Workers brought up a ceremonial railroad tie. Dignitaries presented three ceremonial spikes, one made of gold from California, one made of silver from Nevada, and one from Arizona territory that was a regular iron spike, but with silver plating around the sides and gold plating on the top. The three spikes were given to Leland Stanford, President of the Central Pacific and Chief Investor of the Big Four, and Thomas Durant, Vice President of the Union Pacific. Lastly, Stanford received a second, higher-quality golden spike, which would be considered this symbolic final spike. The final spike was engraved on all four sides.
Starting point is 00:11:14 Two sides contained the names of the railroad's officers and directors. One side had the start date, January 8, 1863, and the completion date, May 8, 1869. The fourth side bore a message that read, May God continue the unity of our country, as this railroad unites the two great oceans of the world. And on the top were the words, The Final Spike. Several men gave speeches, and then it was time for the big moment. Organizers handed a silver-plated spike hammer to Leland Stanford.
Starting point is 00:11:53 He and Thomas Durant used the hammer to gently tap three ceremonial spikes so as not to damage them. Workers quickly removed the special railroad tie, the spikes, and the spike hammer, and placed them under guard so they wouldn't be stolen. Workers brought up a regular railroad tie, a regular spike, and a regular spike hammer for the driving of the real final spike. Leland Stanford had the honor of taking the first swing. He reared back, lifted the hammer high in the air, and brought it down in a mighty blow. And he missed the spike. The hammer hit the railroad tie with an anticlimactic thud.
Starting point is 00:12:32 Thomas Durant accepted the hammer, and his swing missed the spike and the tie. Durant blamed his embarrassing attempt on a severe headache, which was likely caused by a hangover from the previous night's party and prompted him to opt out of giving a speech earlier in the ceremony. So in the end, it was fitting that a regular worker stepped in and drove the final spike home with a single practiced swing. At 1247 p.m. W.N. Schilling, a telegraph operator with Western Union, tapped out a single word, done, and sent it down the wire. The message raced across telegraph lines from coast to coast.
Starting point is 00:13:14 In New York, church bells rang. In Chicago, cannons boomed. In San Francisco, fireworks lit up the sky. In towns large and small, Americans poured into the streets and celebrated. At Promontory, executives and dignitaries celebrated with photographs and champagne. But those who actually built the railroad, Chinese and Irish immigrants, Mormon workers, freed men of the South, and Civil War veterans were largely absent. On the Central Pacific side, the Chinese workers were not asked to participate in the ceremony,
Starting point is 00:13:53 even though they made up 90% of the workforce who had labored through the mountains of California and the deserts of Nevada and Utah. On the Union Pacific side, brothers Jack and Dan Casement, the construction bosses who were vital to the effort, were also conspicuously absent. It was a fitting symbol for the transcontinental railroad itself, a monumental achievement built on unseen sacrifices by men whose names would never be known, and honors and celebrations for the few at the top who rarely, if ever, set foot on the line. And as the ceremonies began to die down, problems started to bubble up through the cracks in
Starting point is 00:14:33 the foundation of the railroad. The project would soon haunt some of the men who oversaw it, especially Thomas Durant and the Union Pacific's inner circle, who were about to face a reckoning that was years in the making. For Thomas Durant and the insiders at the Union Pacific, it was time to pay the piper. Both railroads were open for business and starting to make money moving goods and people across the country, but Durant had to account for the millions of dollars he had siphoned from the project over the years.
Starting point is 00:15:12 With the railroad complete, it looked like for a brief time that Durant and his cronies might get away with their fraud. From day one of the Union Pacific, Durant had used a company called Credit Mobilier as a conduit between the railroad and the government. All the money for the railroad went through Credit Mobilier first, and Durant routed most of it into his own pockets and the pockets of his closest insiders. Durant had been kicked out of Credit Mobilier by Oliver and Oaks Ames, but the scheme didn't stop,
Starting point is 00:15:45 it just diminished somewhat. Over the course of the summer and autumn of 1869, as the glow of the celebration faded, suspicion of the finances of the Union Pacific heated up. In March of 1869, two months before the Golden Spike Ceremony, Ulysses S. Grant took the oath of office as President of the United States. Grant was a former Union Army general and Civil War hero, and he was a man with little patience for political schemers and backroom deals.
Starting point is 00:16:16 Which was ironic because his presidency would be marred by one political scandal after another. When Durant's name surfaced amid the growing list of the Union Pacific's unresolved corruption problems, Grant acted swiftly. In late 1869, Grant stripped Durant of his title as Vice President of the Union Pacific, and the move foreshadowed the dark clouds of a political storm. The storm erupted in September of 1872, three years after the last spike was driven. Henry McComb, one of the original insiders of the Credit Mobilier construction company, felt he had been cheated out of his share of the profits.
Starting point is 00:17:01 In retaliation, he leaked a trove of incriminating documents to the New York Sun newspaper. McComb gave them letters, stock transactions, and secret memos that laid bare what McComb called the Inside Ring, a scheme that stretched from Thomas Durant to the highest offices of Congress. With the information, the New York Sun wrote a damning expose which revealed that Credit Mobilier had funneled enormous profits into the pockets of congressmen, railroad executives, and insiders. Stocks had been sold at steep discounts in exchange for political favors. Investigations into the corruption had been stalled, and subsidies had been approved.
Starting point is 00:17:43 The scheme had been elegant in its simplicity, but staggering in its scale. After public revelations, Congress launched a formal investigation. Soon, testimony from whistleblowers and the accused, including Congressman Oakes Ames, explained the inner workings of the operation. Dozens of powerful men were implicated. The list ran like a roll
Starting point is 00:18:06 call of the nation's leadership, including Vice President Skyler Colfax, Speaker of the House James Blaine, and Representative James Garfield, who would eventually become President. The fallout was immediate and severe. Oakes Ames, dubbed Hoax Ames by newspapers, was censured by the House of Representatives. A few months later, he died under the weight of the scandal. Vice President Colfax, a once-rising political star, saw his career disintegrate. Others like James Garfield narrowly survived, but public trust in the federal government plummeted. One newspaper branded the affair quote, the most damning financial swindle in American history. And the credit mobilier scandal was one of the factors
Starting point is 00:18:55 which led to a worldwide financial crisis the following year that would be called the Panic of 1873. For Thomas Durant, the exposure marked the final collapse. He spent the rest of his life chasing redemption, or at least reinvention. Over the next 13 years, Durant tried to launch new railroads and searched for investors in New York and Florida. But he spent many of his days bogged down by lawsuits, such as those from contractors who still hadn't been paid for building the Union Pacific. Former allies turned their backs,
Starting point is 00:19:31 and government agencies demanded audits. Thomas Durant died in 1885, alone and largely forgotten by the public. He played a significant role in the greatest railroad achievement in American history, but in the process, he nearly destroyed the public's faith in how it was done. While Thomas Durant and the others navigated the fallout of the credit mobilier scandal, the men who actually built the railroad went their separate ways.
Starting point is 00:20:04 Some returned to quiet lives back east or in California. Others stayed in newly formed towns and grew their fortunes. Most disappeared into history. But none were untouched by the monumental thing they had helped create. Grenville Dodge left the Union Pacific Railroad not long after the Golden Spike Ceremony. Bill Dodge left the Union Pacific Railroad not long after the Golden Spike Ceremony. He briefly dabbled in politics and served a single term in Congress as a representative from Iowa. After stepping down, Dodge spent the next 20 years as one of America's premier railroad
Starting point is 00:20:37 consultants. He advised on lines across the Midwest, the Rockies, and even projects in Russia and Peru. At veterans' reunions and engineering conventions, he was treated like an elder statesman. But Dodge rarely sought the spotlight. He liked to say, the tracks spoke for themselves. Jack Casement, the iron-willed construction boss who was Dodge's right-hand man, returned to Paynesville, Ohio. He invested in real estate, ran local businesses,
Starting point is 00:21:08 and became a respected community leader. Without the hard-nosed military discipline he instilled in the Union Pacific workers, it's hard to know how successful the railroad would have been. In the West, the Big Four of the Central Pacific, Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker turned their railroad profits into personal empires. Of the Big Four, the most famous were Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker. Stanford remained a business magnate for the rest of his life and became
Starting point is 00:21:45 a U.S. Senator in his later years. Today, he and his wife Jane are best known for founding a school which became one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Its full legal name is still Leland Stanford Junior University, named after the couple's only child who died as a teenager, though everyone just calls it Stanford. The ceremonial final golden spike from Promontory Summit is still on display at the university's museum. Charles Crocker, the member of the Big Four who was on the ground and instrumental during construction, became one of California's most powerful businessmen. He invested heavily in real estate, founded banks, and lived out
Starting point is 00:22:30 his days in a mansion that overlooked San Francisco Bay. Crocker was never known for sentiment, but he privately admitted that the transcontinental project was the defining achievement of his life. James Strobridge, the Central Pacific's construction superintendent, returned to a quieter life in California. He invested in farms and ranches and settled near the orchards of Hayward, between Oakland and Fremont. Strobridge had been reluctant to try Charles Crocker's unorthodox idea of hiring Chinese workers to build the railroad, but he quickly became a believer and a supporter.
Starting point is 00:23:12 Chinese workers made up nearly 90% of the Central Pacific's workforce at the railroad's peak. A Central Pacific engineer said of the workforce, they learn quickly, do not fight, have no strikes that amount to anything, and are very cleanly in their habits. They are faithful and industrious and under proper supervision, soon become skillful in the performance of their duty. Charles Crocker said, quote, Without them, it would have been impossible to complete the western portion of this great national highway. When the railroad was finished, most of the Chinese workers returned to California and settled in San Francisco, Sacramento, and smaller towns across the state.
Starting point is 00:23:55 Others helped build railroads into Montana, Idaho, and the Pacific Northwest. The Northern Pacific Railway, which ran from Duluth, Minnesota to Seattle, Washington, started construction less than a year after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. On the Union Pacific side, Irishmen, freedmen, and Civil War veterans spread out across the new American West they had helped create. Many settled in thriving towns like North Platte, Laramie, and Cheyenne, which had started as lawless hell-on-wheels camps. Others became farmers or merchants, and nearly all faded into obscurity.
Starting point is 00:24:34 They helped change the country, better for some, worse for others, and though their names won't be remembered, their achievement will. won't be remembered, their achievement will. For the railroads themselves, the Union Pacific barely survived the credit mobilier fallout. The scandal left the company saddled with heavy debt and a battered reputation. As lawsuits mounted, investors fled. And throughout the 1870s, the company teetered on the brink of collapse. In 1880, railroad tycoon Jay Gould seized control of the Union Pacific and began the long process of stabilizing it. Meanwhile, the Central Pacific slowly became part of a larger portfolio of rail systems
Starting point is 00:25:23 which were controlled by the Southern Pacific Railroad, a company created by two of the Big Four, Leland Stanford and Collis Huntington in 1884. The sprawling network of rail systems all over the country continued to grow for more than 60 years until Americans began to rely more heavily on automobiles for transportation. until Americans began to rely more heavily on automobiles for transportation. In 1996, nearly 140 years after the Great Race, the Union Pacific absorbed the Southern
Starting point is 00:25:52 Pacific, included in the merger with the Central Pacific's original assets. Today, the Union Pacific Railroad still operates the Network of Systems and the Individual Railroad, though the Union Pacific carries far more freight than people these days. In the Old West era, people used the train to pour into the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific Coast. As those people built homes and businesses, they needed money. Gold moved east and currency flowed west, much of it on the railroad.
Starting point is 00:26:26 One of the first instances of attempted train robbery in the west was the attack by an outlaw gang on the Union Pacific in Laramie in the summer of 1868. And it didn't take long for the relatively new crime of train robbery to become wildly popular. to become wildly popular. Jesse James and the James Younger Gang robbed their first train in 1873. That was in Adair, Iowa, and it's often cited as the first train robbery in the American West. The gang didn't rob the Union Pacific, but it didn't take long for that to happen. In 1877, Sam Bass and his gang stopped a Union Pacific train near Big Springs, Nebraska. They made off with $60,000 in freshly minted gold coins, the largest robbery in the line's history. A year later, big-nosed George Parrott and his crew tried to derail a Union Pacific train
Starting point is 00:27:24 near Medicine Bow, Wyoming. And in 1899, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid dynamited their way into a Union Pacific Express car during the infamous Wilcox train robbery. They stole tens of thousands of dollars and vanished into the hills. And while those events and countless more provided thrilling stories, even if they had deadly consequences for generations of readers, viewers, and listeners, there were darker ramifications for the coming of the railroad. Native Americans on the southern plains were already watching the decimation of the Buffalo
Starting point is 00:27:59 herds, but it grew worse as railroads raced across the continent. Buffalo Bill Cody earned his nickname by hunting buffalo to feed the workers of the Kansas Pacific Railroad in 1867 and 1868. On the northern plains, the Lakota and Cheyenne had defied the establishment of trails and the construction of forts for years. In 1872, they confronted workers for the Northern Pacific Railroad for the first time. Sitting Bull and a growing host of warriors fought the U.S. Army twice that year
Starting point is 00:28:33 as the soldiers protected the workers who surveyed the Yellowstone River region. The next year, Sitting Bull and the warriors confronted George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry for the first time as Custer's unit guarded the survey crews. As always, the word progress meant different things to different people. Regardless of how the railroad was viewed, good or bad, its significance could not be debated. Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman called
Starting point is 00:29:03 the First Transcontinental Railroad the most important event of modern times. The minister at the Golden Spike ceremony called it the greatest work ever attempted. Journeys that once took months by wagon or horse or required a person to sail hundreds of miles south to Panama and then back up again, now took days. As one reporter put it, the railroad was, quote, annihilating distance and almost outrunning time. Next time on Legends of the Old West, it's two sets of stories which fall under the often requested category of the Pinkertons. We'll highlight the careers of famous detectives James McParland and Charlie Seringo.
Starting point is 00:29:52 Next time on Legends of the Old West. Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week to receive new episodes. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials, and they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships are just $5 per month. This series was researched and written by Matthew Kearns. And I wanna give an extra special thanks to Matt for his work on the series.
Starting point is 00:30:33 The story was gigantic. And like an early skeptic of the railroad itself, I wasn't sure it could be done, but he did it. The series was produced by Joe Guerra and he's owed extra thanks as well. Original music by Rob Valier. I'm Chris Wimmer. Thanks for listening.

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