'Completion of the Pacific Railroad', (1878). The First Transcontinental Railroad (originally the Pacific Railroad) was the first uninterrupted railway between New York on the Atlantic Ocean, and San Francisco on the Pacific Ocean. It ran via Chicago across nine mountain ranges, and travel from coast to coast was reduced from six months to just one week. The Last Spike ceremony, where the track from the east was joined to its counterparts from the west, took place at Promontory, Utah, on 10 May 1869, 'in the presence of many hundred people of various nationalities, including some of our dusky barbarian brethren'. From "Our Country: a Household History for All Readers, from the Discovery of America to the Present Time", Volume 3, by Benson J. Lossing. [Johnson & Miles, New York, 1878]