Transcontinental Railroad Web Quest
Go to the following website: *Open
all links using Firefox
http://www.up.com/aboutup/history/index.htm
You will need to navigate back and forth through the sub-headings to answer all of the questions.
Click on Historical Overview- Read The Iron Road and answer the following:
1. What were some of the hardships when building a transcontinental railroad?
Click on Build a Road and answer:
2. What are some of the advantages to a transcontinental railroad?
3. What did the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 do?
Hit the back arrow.
Click on Financing and answer:`
4. How was the Union Pacific transcontinental railroad financed?
5. How did Theodore Judah negotiate a route over the Sierra Nevada Mountains?
6. How did he finance it? (Include the names of the Big 4)
7. How did he get the heavy equipment to this part of the country?
Hit the back arrow
Click on Construction - answer the following”
8. Who led the Union Pacific Construction?
9. By the end of 1865 how much money had Union Pacific spent and how many miles of track
were laid?
10. Who took over as chief engineer?
11. What was one of the Union Pacific's worst problems?
12. Why was it more difficult to build the Railroad the further west it went?
13. Who is Samuel Reed and what was his job?
14. What was one problem faced by those building East from California? How did they solve
this problem?
15. What was a problem faced by those building from Omaha? How did they solve this problem?
16. What immigrant groups made up the workers on the railroad?
17. What was their average pay?
18. Where did the work crews live?
19. What were some of the jobs they performed?
20. What were the hours they worked?
21. Describe the atmosphere when the workers got time off?
22. What were some of nature's hardships they faced?
23. In the winter of 1866 what were some of the challenges and how did they solve these
problems?
24. Why did each company want to reach Salt Lake City first?
25. What happened on May 10, 1869?
Click on back arrow
Click on Post Construction and answer:
What was the Impact of the Transcontinental Railroad on the following:
26. The West:
27. Industry:
28. Cattle:
29. Families:
Click on back arrow
Click on Photo Gallery
Click on Railroad construction: Gallery three
Look at the pictures - enlarge the picture if necessary
Choose 1 picture, list 3 unusual artifacts in each picture.
30.
31.
32.
Click on back arrow
Click on celebrities
33. Who were two of the celebrities photographed?
34. Why would it be important to have photos of celebrities on the train?
Click on back arrow
Click on Presidents
35. Which Presidents were photographed on a train?
http://www.goushistorygo.com/#!buffalo-soldiers/cgc8
36. What was the 9th Calvary of the United States?
37. How did the African American unit get the nickname “Buffalo Soldiers”?
38. What did the settlers do to the land owned by the Native Americans? (3 things)
39. Why did the Buffalo regiments find themselves in a weird position?
40. How were African Americans treated differently in the U.S. Army?
http://www.goushistorygo.com/#!american-cowboy-/c1rd2
41. Why did ranches employ cowboys? (2nd box)
42. What was the significance of branding cattle? (2nd box)
43. What did cowboys fear the most when driving cattle across the plains? (2nd box)
44. Name 3 ways farmers posed the biggest threat to the cowboy’s way of life? (4th box)
45. What led to the cowboy’s job becoming obsolete? (4th box)
http://www.goushistorygo.com/#!life-on-an-indian-reservation/c1ak6
46. What were the two types of Indians who during the era known as Indian Wars? (1st box)
47. How did the government change the way it dealt with the “Indian problem”? (2nd box)
48. What was life like for an Indian on a reservation? (2nd box)
http://www.goushistorygo.com/#!clash-of-two-cultures/c1xs7
49. Explain the misunderstanding between the Indians and whites on how each viewed the
concept of land? (1st box)
50. Why was the buffalo so important to the Plains Indians? What happened to the Natives when
the buffalo started to disappear?