The Central Pacific Railroad began hiring Chinese by the thousands in the mid 1860s. They drove a rial line from San Francisco to Promontory Point in Utah, through the most difficult strech of the Sierra Nevada Mtns. Central Pacific Railraod manager EB Crocer boasted that 'they [the Chinese] prove nearly equal to white men in the amount of labor they perform, and are far more reliable. No danger of strikes among them.' The Chinese carved a path out of the perpendicular cliffs about the American River by lowering one another in wicker baskets by a pulley system to drill holes, inserting gunpowder in the rocks, and hten lightin the fuses, quickly hoisting themselves up the line before the explosion [!!!!!]. Because of managements's interest in comleting the project--two rival railraod magnates had laid a wager on which would lay the most track until they met--the Chinese had to work in the dead of winter, drilling a tunnel through the Donner Summitt while their camps lay buried in snow. Many who were killed in snowslides were not found until the following summer. It is estimated that more than 1200 Chinese before the two railroad lines were united with a solid golden spike."
p. 142-3
rb