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Wondery plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American history tellers early and ad free. Right now, join Wondery plus and the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Imagine it's May 1866, and you're seated at a corner table in the bustling dining room of the national hotel in Washington, D.C. chandeliers cast a warm light over the remnants of your meal. You're a lobbyist for the Central Pacific Railroad, and you've just finished dinner with a Michigan congressman. You sip your wine and lean forward in your chair. Now, I think you know why I invited you here tonight, Congressman. Something's troubling my friends at the Central Pacific. The Congressman pushes his empty plate aside and takes a cigar out of his pocket, lighting it with the flame of a tapered candle. No. And what's that? Well, they've never been happy with the 1864 railroad bill. It prohibits them from laying tracks more than one hundred and fifty miles beyond the California border. I've never heard something so ludicrous. They're upset that they can't lay tracks across Nevada. Seems to me they have bigger fish to fry considering they've been stalled on the western side of the Sierras for months. The worst of their labor is still to come. But they won't be stuck there forever. The Union Pacific is speeding across the Great Plains. It's not fair that they have the right to build as far as they'd like, but the Central Pacific doesn't. The Congressman takes a deep puff of his cigar and shakes his head. Well, if you ask me, it's going to take your bosses a decade to blast their way out of the Sierras. By then the Union Pacific will have crossed the California Nevada border from the east. But hear me out, sir. The Central Pacific isn't seeking any more money. What they want won't cost the government anything. All they want is equal opportunity, the right to compete fairly. I mean, isn't that the American way? Congressman narrows his eyes. Speak plainly. What is it you want? I'm simply asking you to amend the railroad bill, removing the limits on the Central Pacific's mileage. Let them build out as far as they're able. The Congressman leans back in his chair and draws in a deep puff from his cigar. Perhaps next year. There are too many other priorities on the agenda. It's an election year, you know, and the fate of a California railroad isn't exactly top of mind for my constituents in Michigan. But the partners at the Central Pacific have more than enough funds to make it worth your while. At this, the congressman's eyes light up. You can see wheels turning in his mind. Well, then, now we have something to discuss. Relief washes over you, and you raise your glass for a toast to the future of the Central Pacific. You clink glasses, sealing your agreement, and as you sip your wine, a warm feeling of satisfaction settles in your chest. You know you've played your cards well, because if there's only one thing you've learned from this job, it's that money talks. Apple Card is the perfect card for your holiday shopping. When you use Apple Card on your iPhone, you'll earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase, including products at Apple like a new iPhone 16 or Apple Watch Ultra. Apply now in the Wallet app on your iPhone, subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch terms and more@applecard.com American History Tellers is sponsored by Audible, whose best of 2024 picks are here. Discover the year's top audiobooks and originals in all your favorite genres, from memoirs and sci fi to mysteries and thrillers. Audible's curated list in every category is the best way to hear 2024's best in audio. Enter like a stunning new full cast production of George Orwell's 1984 heartfelt memoirs like Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's lovely one, the year's best fiction, like the Women by Kristin Hannah and Percival Everett's brilliantly subversive title James or a personal pick of mine, Malcolm Gladwell's latest audiobook, Revenge of the Tipping Point. Find a new favorite and get listening with Audible, because there's more to imagine when you listen. Go to audible.com tellers and discover all the years best waiting for you from Wondery. I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history. Your story. In the spring of 1866, the Central Pacific Railroad hired a lobbyist to represent its interests in Congress. The company was building the transcontinental railroad eastward from California, but federal law had limited it to building no further than 150 miles into Nevada. Executives wanted the federal government to remove all limits on where they could lay tracks, allowing them to compete with the Union Pacific for land and government bonds. But Central Pacific workers were stalled in California, facing the monumental task of blasting 15 tunnels through solid granite. Building a railroad across the Sierra Nevada mountains demanded ingenuity and perseverance, especially during one of the worst winters of the century. And it depended on thousands of Chinese laborers who would be pushed to their breaking point. 1,000 miles to the east, other workers on the Union Pacific faced harassment and violence from Plains Indians who were desperate to defend their ancestral homelands from the encroaching railroad. But mountains, snow and Indian attacks mattered little to the men in charge of the railroads. They knew that every mile of track meant money in their pockets. And as their rivalry intensified, they would stop at nothing to capture victory. This is episode three hell on wheels. By the spring of 1866, Union Pacific track layers were making steady progress across the plains from Nebraska. But out in California, Central Pacific crews had spent more than six months stuck at mile 54 east of Sacramento, slowly chipping away at Sierra Nevada mountains. Some naysayers insisted that it would take a decade to tunnel through the granite range. Sitting in his office in New York City, Central Pacific Vice President Collis Huntington read glowing reports of the Union Pacific's progress in the Great Plains. And he feared that if the Union Pacific kept up its momentum, before long their crews would eventually build past the Central Pacific line, rendering his investments worthless. The 1864 Pacific Railway act had granted the Union Pacific the right to build as far west as possible. But the Central Pacific was limited to building just 150 miles east of the California Nevada border. And even though the Central Pacific crews were nowhere near the state line, Huntington wanted to change the law so his crews could build as far east as possible. Mileage equaled dollars in the form of land, mineral rights and government bonds, and Huntington wanted the right to compete for them. So he enlisted the help of a charismatic ex congressman and former Union army general named Richard Francho. Franchot became the first paid lobbyist in the history of Congress. Huntington and the other members of the big four that controlled the Central Pacific paid him $20,000 a year, the same salary they paid themselves and more than five times the salary Francheau had made as a congressman. The Big Four also supplied Franchot with a large expense account so he could spread cash and favors throughout Congress. Before long, his efforts paid off. On July 3, 1866, President Andrew Johnson signed an amendment to the railroad bill allowing the Central Pacific to construct its line east until it connected with the Union Pacific line. But it made no mention of where that meeting point would be. So whichever company built faster could claim more miles of track. Essentially, the federal government had sanctioned a competition between the two railroads. Soon the Central Pacific sent surveyors to Nevada to plot a route through the desert, and the race was officially on. But it was a race that the Central Pacific could not win as long as it was still Stalled in the Sierras. By the summer of 1866, construction chief Charles Crocker and his crew boss, James Harvey Strowbridge had hired 10,000 workers, 8,000 of them Chinese immigrants. They faced the daunting challenge of digging 15 tunnels through solid granite. To make the route over the Sierras passable for trains, they needed to bore five tunnels on the west slope. One through the Donner Summit and nine on the east slope. In August 1866, workers began tackling the largest tunnel, known as Summit Tunnel. The crews needed to blast through roughly 1/3 of a mile of solid rock. The workers used hand drills to bore 2 inch holes into the granite. And then they packed these holes with black powder and lit a fuse to blast away tiny chunks of rock. The process was excruciatingly slow. Despite working in shifts around the clock, crews only managed a few inches per day. To speed up their work, engineer Samuel Montague decided to drill a large vertical shaft down the middle of the mountain so the crews could work on four faces at a time. Two teams would work on the western and eastern ends of the tunnel, and two more would work from the middle outward. The shaft would be 8 by 12ft wide and more than 70ft deep. But the crew struggled to dig the rubble out by hand. Engineers found a solution in an old abandoned locomotive called the Sacramento, One of the first to operate west of the Missouri river. River. Workers stripped the 12 ton locomotive of its non essential parts and a team of 10 oxen dragged it to the top of Donner summit. There, its engine powered a hoist for pulling up blasted granite and lowering down timber to shore up the tunnel. This new hoist helped the crews enlarge the shaft by a foot every day. But it would still take months before they would finally reach the bottom and begin blasting the tunnel from the inside out. And by November 1866, heavy snows began to blanket the mountains. The winter that year was one of the worst of the century, bringing 44 separate storms to the Sierras. At the summit, the snowpack averaged 18ft. But the big four refused to shut down work for fear of losing the race with their rival. They knew the Union Pacific was making a rapid advance across Nebraska. And while they were measuring their progress in miles, the Central Pacific was still measuring their success in inches. So instead of closing down for the winter, Strobridge put hundreds of Chinese laborers to work shoveling snow tunnels ranging from 50 to 500ft long. To maintain access to the work sites, they dug windows, chimneys and air shafts out of the snow walls for light and ventilation. Some of the tunnels were large enough for horses to travel through. And for the rest of the winter, these Chinese workers lived and worked inside the snow labyrinths. They rarely saw the light of day. Working in the snow was dangerous as well as claustrophobic. The black powder charges sometimes triggered avalanches, which killed dozens at a time. An unknown number of men lost their lives. The company kept no records. Only after the snow melted in the spring would many of the bodies be discovered, still gripping picks and shovels in their frozen hands. But despite working through the winter storms, the tunneler's progress remained painfully slowly. In January 1867, Crocker wrote to Huntington, declaring, strowbridge and I have come to the conclusion that something must be done to hasten it. So they decided to turn to a substance they had read about in Scientific American magazine. Liquid nitroglycerin. It was the most powerful explosive ever made, eight times more destructive than black powder. It was also much cheaper. But there was a downside. It was extremely temperamental. The previous year, an accidental nitroglycerin explosion had leveled half a block in downtown San Francisco, killing 15 people. But Crocker and Strowbridge were desperate. They proceeded despite the risks. In February, they hired a Scottish chemist to mix the nitroglycerin on site. This new explosive allowed the workers to bore smaller holes in the rock with greater destructive yield. The debris left behind was also easier to clear. So using nitroglycerin, workers in the summit tunnel were able to blast away two to four feet a day in all four directions. And while work continued in the tunnels in the spring of 1867, another 3,000 graders and track layers worked on the east side of the summit, where surveyors had traveled as far as the Great Salt Lake in Utah, where they crossed paths with surveyors from the Union Pacific. But any eastward aspirations were still stuck in the Donner passion, where Chinese workers were laboring through 12 foot snowdrifts. And now the company was beginning to lose men to the gold mines and other employers. One Central Pacific director complained, we have proved their value as laborers. Everyone is trying Chinese workers, and now we can't get them. So to keep their Chinese workers in the fold, construction chief Charles Crocker raised their monthly wages from 31 to $35. But for many, it still wasn't enough to reward them for performing the most grueling work of the entire railroad. Imagine it's June 25, 1867, and you're grading the roadbed for the Central Pacific. You're high in the Sierras blasting rock between Sisko and Strong's Canyon. Under the watchful eye of your boss, James Strowbridge. Sweat drips down to your neck as you secretly check your watch, a small luxury you bought with meager wages. You nod to the men on either side of you, and they nod back with their jaws set. You then lay down your pickaxe. One by one, the other men lay down their tools, too. Without another word, you begin walking back toward camp.