Central Pacific Railroad (CPR) began work on the western portion of the Transcontinental Railroad in Sacramento on January 8, 1863. They encountered their first significant obstacle in spring of 1864: a long, tall ridge at Bloomer Ranch. This ridge, which was made of a rock suspended in clay, effectively formed a massive, natural concrete wall. Workers broke picks, shovels, and other equipment attempting to break through the ridge, and eventually resorted to using black blasting powder. Using 500 kegs of explosives per day, the crew began chipping away at the ridge.
The work was incredibly dangerous. One explosion blinded the left eye of the energetic and tall foreman, Harvey Strobridge after he attempted to prepare 50 pounds of powder. The Chinese respected Strobridge, and those who learned English called him “Stro” or the “One-eyed bossy man.” Strobridge respected the Chinese workers after working a month with them. He stated, “They learn quickly, do not fight, have no strikes that amount to anything, and are very cleanly in their habits. They will gamble and do quarrel among themselves most noisily – but harmlessly.” The chief engineer, Samuel Montague, stated “The Chinese are faithful and industrious and under proper supervision soon become skillful in the performance of their duty. Many of them are becoming experts in drilling, blasting, and other departments of rock work.”
Ultimately, workers removed over 40,000 cubic yards of material, completing the grade and tracks through Bloomer Cut in the spring of 1865. The first train reached Auburn from Sacramento on May 13, 1865, and Bloomer Cut was considered a great engineering feat to merit the title of the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” The concrete-like walls have preserved Bloomer Cut well, and the site today still looks much the same as it did in 1865.
The Sierra Nevada presented the most formidable engineering challenges of the entire Transcontinental Railroad project. Unlike the relatively flat terrain of the Central Valley, the mountains required workers to carve routes through solid granite while navigating steep cliffs, unstable rock formations, and extreme weather conditions.
At locations such as Cape Horn, workers blasted narrow ledges into sheer mountain faces overlooking the American River canyon. Suspended in baskets, Chinese laborers drilled and blasted rock while hanging hundreds of feet above the ground. This work required extraordinary precision and courage, as even a small miscalculation could result in fatal falls or failed blasts.
Bloomer Cut was another major engineering obstacle. The ridge, composed of clay and rock, had to be excavated using black powder blasting. Workers removed massive amounts of material to create a path for the railroad, demonstrating both persistence and innovation in overcoming natural barriers.
These efforts were carried out under some of the harshest conditions in American history. Heavy snowfall, avalanches, and freezing temperatures slowed progress and endangered lives. Despite these challenges, Chinese laborers played a central role in advancing the railroad through the Sierra Nevada, transforming an unforgiving landscape into a critical link in the nation’s transportation network.
Building the railroad through the Sierra Nevada was the most challenging aspect of the Transcontinental Railroad. Chinese laborers had to initially bore through rock using 8-pound sledgehammers and chisels, often by candlelight or lantern, to create 2-feet deep by 2.5 inch wide holes, which took hours for a 3-man crew to create. The Chinese laborers first filled 1/3 of the hole with blasting powder, and then clay/hay/sand to secure the fuse. They lit the fuse, ran, and the subsequent explosion sent rock debris, dust, and black powder residue into the air, which made breathing difficult.
Aside from the dangerous blasting, many more Chinese men lost their lives during the harsh winters. During the winter of 1866-1867, there were 44 storms, many of which dumped over 6 feet of snow. Avalanches frequently swept groups of Chinese workers to their deaths. Chinese laborers had to resort to working and traveling through the snow in excavated snow rooms and snow tunnels connecting where they worked to where they lived in their bitterly cold one- and two-story wooden buildings.
Summit Camp, where those structures were located, remains one of the longest-standing camps from the railroad construction era. Despite the harsh working conditions, Chinese laborers were not treated equally to their fellow white workers. On June 25th, around 5,000 Chinese went on a strike against the Central Pacific Railroad. The strike took place along the eastern slope of the Sierras between Cisco and Strong’s Canyon, which is near nowaday Eder. Chinese laborers fought for their rights including a pay increase, reduced workdays, and shorter shifts drilling in life threatening tunnels.
In retaliation, the director of Central Pacific Railroad Charles Croker cut off food and supply trains, even threatening violence against those workers. After eight days, the workers ultimately ended their strike without any of their demands being met. Later evidence, however, suggests that they did receive a pay raise several months later. After beginning work in the Sierras in the fall of 1865, Chinese laborers laid the tracks through the most difficult of the 1,687-feet Summit Tunnel #6 on November 30, 1867. Eventually, they built 37 miles of snow sheds through the Sierra Nevada by 1869. As snow removal techniques improved, many of the older wooden snow sheds grew unnecessary, and were later removed. Those that were still needed were eventually replaced by concrete snow sheds, which remain on site today.
The miners who discovered gold in this area wanted to keep the location a secret, and thus founded Secret Town. At the time, the Transcontinental Railroad ran near Secret Town as an impressive wooden trestle that stretched 1,110 feet across and 95 feet above a nearby ravine. The wooden trestles, however, often caught fire from smokestack sparks as trains crossed. To solve this dilemma, the Central Pacific Railroad hired Chinese laborers to fill the Secret Town trestle with dirt.
Chinese laborers moved large volumes of dirt from the surrounding landscape with hand and mule carts to the trestle. The subsequent filling of Secret Town ravine to accommodate I-80 and other features have largely minimized the scale of the Chinese laborers’ accomplishments. Today, the trestle remains buried under the fill.
When Chinese laborers worked on the First Transcontinental Railroad in Sierra Nevada mountains, they also built work camps along the railroad line. As construction progressed, these Chinese workers kept moving east, so most of the eastward camps consist of temporary structures. Summit Camp, however, is different from most of these work camps. Located just above the east entrance to the Summit Tunnel (Tunnel #6), this camp was in use during the construction of the Summit Tunnel in 1865 and was continually used until 1869 long after the tunnel’s completion in 1867. Due to its longer operation time along with the harsh winters on Donner Summit, Summit Camp has more substantial structures. The one- and two-story high houses in Summit Camp were built to endure heavy snow to protect Chinese workers.
Still, working conditions were difficult. Many workers could barely see the sun in winter as they traveled back and forth between their houses and tunnels under the snow for months. It is highly possible that when Summit Camp was abandoned, the buildings were deconstructed and reused elsewhere. Over the years, archaeologists have found many historic objects depicting the life of Summit Camp’s Chinese inhabitants, including coins, porcelain rice bowls, and opium pipe bowls. However, efforts to preserve the historic site have been challenged by ongoing construction and increased tourist activity.
More than 150 years after its original construction, a stone wall, originally built to hold up parts of the railroad tracks, still stands at Donner Summit between tunnels #7 and #8. This railroad retaining wall is called China Wall or Chinese Wall to commemorate the contributions of Chinese laborers whose labor allowed for the completion of railroad work in the Sierra mountains. On August 11th, 1984, the Truckee-Donner Historical Society marked this place as a historic landmark with a plaque telling the story of Chinese Railroad Workers.
This pond has no streams that feed into it. Therefore, it is thought that this pond was stocked with catfish in the late 1860’s to feed Chinese workers, who were building a stretch of the Transcontinental Railroad nearby. The descendants of these stocked fish have survived in the pristine pond for more than 150 years and continue to thrive in this unusual environment, even as the pond is covered with around ten feet of snow each winter.
At places like catfish pond, Chinese railroad workers began to adapt parts of their rich and varied food culture to a strange, foreign land. While other workers drank water from communal dippers, Chinese laborers preferred to drink tea and hot water, reducing incidences of dysentery and other illness-causing microbes that were killed during the boiling process. They preferred to eat Chinese foods, including dried fish, dried vegetables, dried oysters and rice. The Central Pacific Railroad gave exclusive rights to Sisson, Wallace and Company, to provide food and other provisions to the railroad workers. As the railroad tracks gradually extended through the Sierra Nevada’s, a train car labeled “China Store” followed the work camps to the end of the tracks so that Chinese workers could make purchases. In groups of 12 to 30 men, crews could pay for a Chinese cook to prepare their meals. These cooks were highly valued and often compensated far better than the laborers they were feeding.