In this excerpt from the book's fourth chapter, Twain describes his 1861 journey by mule-drawn express mail coach, in the days before the railroad, and compares it to a newspaper article from the ...

Harper's Weekly reported on the progress of the transcontinental railroad throughout its construction. These excerpts, organized chronologically, report on conflicts with Native Americans ...

More than 1,500 laborers, at least 1,000 of whom were Chinese, under the direction of former Central Pacific Railroad worker ...