But there is no extant letter, diary, or memoir by the Chinese workers themselves.
This was the largest engineering project of the time, crucial for developing the American West and connecting the United States across the continent. The terrain was a bit easier once they reached the high desert of Nevada and Utah, but there they had to contend with extreme heat, long supply lines, and the breakneck speed of construction. The eastern section of the line, built by the Union Pacific Railroad Company, required tracks laid across vast flat expanses of mid-western prairie, but the western portion of the line required tunneling through the imposing Sierra Nevada mountains – blasting and digging cuts through deep rock, carving out 15 tunnels through solid granite in high altitudes, dumping large quantities of dirt and rubble to create fills, constructing trestles across deep canyons, building retaining walls. The Chinese numbered 10,000 to 15,000 during high points of construction of the CPRR and they perhaps amounted up to 20,000 in total between 18, composing as much as 90 percent of the workforce for much of the construction. Chinese workers were an essential part of building the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR), the western section of the first transcontinental railroad across the United States.
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