As the public’s interest in America’s westward movement continued into the 1850s, an inexpensive, yet speedy, method of transportation seemed to be the answer to the nation’s quandary of how to exploit the trans-Mississippi West.
The railroad, which had been a boon back East for several years, appeared to be the most logical approach to the solution. But politicians asked themselves what the realistic chances were of constructing a railroad that would follow a route across the immense Great Plains, through the lofty Rocky Mountains, and beyond the arid stretches of the far West all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
As early as 1844, Asa Whitney, a visionary New York merchant, had proposed to the U.S. Congress that it appropriate money for a transcontinental railroad.
Before Whitney’s plea, S.W. Dexter in 1832 had suggested the practicality of running a railroad from Lake Erie to the mouth of the Columbia River in far-off Oregon, but it took the success of the overland migrations to the Pacific Coast and the discovery of gold in California to galvanize the attention of government officials on the real necessity of getting to work on such a monumental project.
In the early 1850s, by the time the federal government finally got serious about building such a railroad, finding the most practical route across the continent became the primary consideration.
The issue that eventually tore the nation apart less than 10 years later, Southern vs. Northern sectionalism, had by then raised serious issues that were dividing the country with every passing day.
Political From The Start
In Congress, the proposed route for the planned transcontinental railroad became part of the growing argument as proponents and politicians from both the North and the South attempted to out-talk and out-maneuver their neighbors in having the Eastern railheads for the finalized route located in their respective sections of the country.
At the center of the controversy were two well-known leaders — Jefferson Davis, the United States secretary of war, and former Missouri Sen. Thomas Hart Benton.
Davis, a Southerner, preferred a route that would traverse the southern sections of the country. Benton scoffed at the idea of running a railroad through the desert southwest, citing the fact that the terrain was too dry and desiccated. His preference was a route that would follow the 38th parallel from central Missouri to the Pacific.
Suggestions for other routes emerged as well. In fact, so many alternatives were proposed, each one promoted by its regional advocates, that the question generated a lengthy debate in Congress before members came up with a scheme that they hoped, but some doubted, would solve the dilemma.
In early March 1853, legislators passed a bill that gave Secretary of War Davis an imaginative, but seemingly impossible, mission. Davis was instructed to submit to Congress, within 10 months detailed reports, each one supported by actual field surveys, of four of the most popular proposed routes to the Pacific.
Scoping The Routes
Davis quickly mobilized the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers and sent surveying parties into the Western wilds to reconnoiter the several routes.
The northernmost way would have its eastern terminus at St. Paul, Minnesota, and roughly follow a path between the 47th and 49th parallels through Fort Union, Fort Benton, Fort Walla Walla and on to the Pacific along the Columbia River.
The man chosen to head up this variation was Isaac I. Stevens, who at the same time of his appointment to the surveying post, was also made governor of the newly created Washington Territory.
The next suggested route, and the one favored by Thomas Hart Benton, would begin in St. Louis and run between the 38th and 39th parallels across Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah and Nevada to California. The survey leader was Captain John W. Gunnison, a West Point graduate whose experience in the central Rocky Mountains made him a logical choice.
In October 1853, however, Gunnison and seven of his men were killed by a band of hostile Paiute Indians in the region of Sevier Lake, Utah.
The third proposed course would leave Fort Smith, Arkansas and traverse present-day Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, New Mexico and Arizona before entering southern California near Death Valley.
Lt. Amiel W. Whipple, a seasoned engineer and scientist, led this expedition that roughly followed the 35th parallel.
Finally, the fourth and southernmost route, surveyed by Lt. John G. Parke and Capt. John Pope, would have connected Fort Washita in present-day Oklahoma with California by following the 32nd parallel through extreme southern New Mexico and Arizona.
Pays Dividends
As far as results were concerned, Governor Stevens's report was glowing and it carried his strong recommendation that the railroad follow the northern route, between the 47th and 49th parallels. However, other engineering authorities looked dimly upon the proposal, including Stevens’ own naturalist, Dr. George Suckley.
Before he was killed by Indians, Gunnison had already recommended against the route that he was surveying, citing the overwhelming expenses involved in laying a railroad through the complex maize of high mountains.
Whipple reported that his route was quite favorable, while Pope in his final report pointed out the advantages that an extreme southern route could have over the other proposals if nothing more than its proximity to Santa Fe and other popular trading centers in the Southwest.
Despite the mammoth expense of sending out multiple survey parties to identify practicable routes to the Pacific Ocean, when all of the results were in (late as might have been expected), they generated little interest among members of Congress.
Secretary of War Davis anticipated as much when, in 1858, he instructed Congressional leaders that the selection of routes should be solely based upon the engineering aspects of building a viable and economically feasible railroad across the continent and not upon politics, partisan opinions and sectionalism.
Although the surveys had little bearing on the eventual routing of the first transcontinental railroad, they more than made up for the shortcoming by the vast amount of biological, geological and ethnological data they produced.
In fact, this information about relative unknown regions of the nation's Western holdings provided scientists and ethnographers with a storehouse of information that kept them working for years.
