The Chinese Workers Who Carved the Central Pacific Railroad

In the Sierra Nevada winter of 1866–67, railroad construction did not pause for snow. Chinese workers drilled into granite, cleared rock after blasts, and kept the Central Pacific moving east from California. By the time the transcontinental lines met in Utah, the workers who had crossed the western mountains were largely missing from the ceremony Americans came to remember.

The Pacific Railway Act authorized the transcontinental project in 1862, but the Central Pacific’s route depended on immigrant labor from southern China. Chinese workers did far more than grade land beside the tracks. They drilled, blasted, hauled, built roadbed, and laid rail across terrain that had slowed the railroad’s early progress.

An Experimental Hire in Sacramento

The Central Pacific broke ground in Sacramento in 1863, but it struggled to recruit and retain workers. Many white laborers left for mining or better-paying jobs as the route neared the Sierra Nevada.

In February 1865, Central Pacific director Charles Crocker urged construction superintendent James H. Strobridge to try a crew of 50 Chinese laborers. Strobridge had opposed the idea. The trial was a response to a labor shortage, not a commitment to equal treatment. It succeeded, and the railroad expanded recruitment in California and Guangdong Province, where many of the workers originated. ^[1][2]

By 1867, Chinese immigrants made up an estimated 80 to 90 percent of the Central Pacific construction workforce. Estimates of the total number employed between 1865 and 1869 range from roughly 12,000 to 20,000. ^[1][5]

Chinese headmen and labor contractors organized work gangs. Railroad building in the mountains required coordinated work: drilling and blasting, masonry, hauling, and track laying.

Granite, Snow, and Explosives

The Sierra Nevada was the Central Pacific’s defining obstacle. At Cape Horn, crews cut a narrow railbed into a steep bluff above the American River canyon. Farther east, the railroad had to pass through granite near Donner Pass.

Chinese crews helped carve 15 tunnels through the Sierra. The hardest was Summit Tunnel, or Tunnel No. 6, a 1,659-foot passage at Donner Pass. Crews worked in shifts around the clock, drilling holes into rock, packing them with black powder and later nitroglycerin, clearing debris, and starting again. ^[1][6]

Heavy snow and avalanches made the winter of 1866–67 especially dangerous. Some popular stories about the construction remain difficult to verify, including the familiar account of workers routinely lowered over cliffs in wicker baskets. The documented work was hazardous enough: blasting rock, working through mountain storms, and maintaining a route through snowbound terrain.

The August 1867 breakthrough at Summit Tunnel showed that the Central Pacific could move beyond the Sierra barrier. The workers who made that progress did so under unequal conditions.

A Strike Across the Mountains

Chinese workers generally earned $26 to $35 per month and had to pay for their own food and lodging. White workers received higher pay as well as board and lodging. ^[1][3][6]

In June 1867, Chinese workers organized a strike across the Sierra construction line. Between 3,000 and 5,000 workers stopped work, making it one of the West’s largest organized labor actions of the period. They sought $40 a month and an eight-hour day in the tunnels, where the work was especially dangerous. ^[1]

The strike demonstrates that Chinese railroad laborers did not simply accept whatever employers imposed. Their coordinated action could halt a major infrastructure project.

Central Pacific management refused the demands. After eight days, it broke the strike by cutting off food and supplies to isolated mountain camps. Workers dependent on company-controlled supply lines in remote country had little room to continue. ^[1]

Construction resumed, but the dispute exposed the railroad’s labor system: the company depended on Chinese workers while paying them less and controlling their access to basic provisions.

The Final Rail and the Famous Photograph

After the Sierra crossing, construction accelerated across Nevada and Utah. On April 28, 1869, Chinese and Irish crews laid 10 miles and 56 feet of track in a single day. ^[2][6]

On May 10, Chinese track layers placed the Central Pacific’s final rail before the Golden Spike ceremony joined the Central Pacific and Union Pacific lines at Promontory Summit, Utah. The completed railroad made travel, freight, migration, and communication between the Pacific Coast and the East faster and more closely connected.

Andrew J. Russell’s well-known Promontory photograph, often called the “Champagne Photo,” does not include the Chinese workers who built the western line. ^[3]

That omission should not become another inaccuracy. Russell also photographed Chinese track layers at Promontory on the day of the ceremony. The issue is not that no photograph exists, but that the image that became the dominant public symbol of completion centered others. ^[2][3]

Photographs by Central Pacific photographer Alfred A. Hart and archaeological work at railroad sites offer a broader record. Artifacts from camps have helped historians examine daily life, including food, tea consumption, and the organization of Chinese communities where personal written accounts are scarce. ^[1][2]

Built Into the Nation, Then Barred From It

Completing the railroad did not bring Chinese immigrants security or equal standing. Anti-Chinese hostility grew in the West as economic anxiety and racial prejudice became political pressure. Workers who had helped supply labor for western expansion were increasingly portrayed as a threat to white workers and communities. ^[4]

On May 6, 1882, President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act. The law barred Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States and became the first major federal immigration restriction aimed at a particular nationality. ^[4]

Only 13 years separated Promontory from exclusion. The sequence is central to the railroad’s history: the country depended on Chinese workers to build a continental route, then used federal power to prevent further immigration from their communities.

In 2014, the Department of Labor inducted the Chinese Railroad Workers into its Hall of Honor. ^[5] The recognition cannot undo unequal pay, dangerous conditions, or decades of omission. It does acknowledge a basic fact obscured by the best-known Golden Spike image: the Central Pacific could not have crossed the Sierra Nevada or reached Promontory when it did without Chinese labor.

Frequently Asked Questions

What percentage of the Central Pacific workforce was Chinese?

By 1867, Chinese immigrants made up an estimated 80 to 90 percent of the Central Pacific Railroad’s construction workforce. ^[1][2]

Why did Chinese railroad workers strike in 1867?

Thousands struck for higher pay—$40 per month—and an eight-hour day in the tunnels. They faced lower wages and inferior provisions compared with white workers. The Central Pacific ended the strike by cutting food and supply lines to mountain camps. ^[1]

Were Chinese workers present at the Golden Spike ceremony?

Yes. Chinese track layers laid the Central Pacific’s final rail before the May 10, 1869, ceremony, and Russell photographed Chinese workers at Promontory. They were absent, however, from the famous commemorative group photograph that came to define the event in popular memory. ^[2][3]

TIMELINE

Key moments

Sources

1. Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project — Stanford University
2. The Archeology of Chinese Laborers Who Connected the Country — National Park Service
3. Struggling for Work: Chinese Immigrants and the Transcontinental Railroad — Library of Congress
4. Chinese Immigration and the Chinese in the United States (RIP 99) — National Archives and Records Administration
5. Hall of Honor Inductee: The Chinese Railroad Workers — U.S. Department of Labor
6. Teacher's Guide: Chinese Railroad Workers' Experience — California State Railroad Museum

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