Nationwide railway strike begins at Pullman, Ill. Nearly 260,000 railroad workers ultimately joined the strike to protest wage cuts by the Pullman Palace Car Co. - 1894
Thanks to an army of thousands of Chinese and Irish immigrants, who laid 2,000 miles of track, the nation?s first transcontinental railway line was finished by the joining of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines at Promontory Point, Utah - 1869