First Transcontinental Railroad

The First Transcontinental Railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route") was a contiguous railroad line constructed in the United States between 1863 and 1869 west of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to connect the Pacific coast at San Francisco Bay with the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa. The rail line was built by three private companies: the original Western Pacific Railroad Company between Oakland and Sacramento, California , the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California eastward from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory (U.T.) , and the Union Pacific westward to Promontory Summit from the road's statutory Eastern terminus at Council Bluffs on the eastern shore of the Missouri River opposite Omaha, Nebraska .