And the Iron Horse, the earth-shaker, the fire-breather, which tramples down the hills, which outruns the laggard winds, which leaps over the rivers, which grinds the rocks to powder and breaks down the gates of the mountain, he too shall build an empire and an epic. --"Statistics and Speculations Concerning the Pacific Railroad," Putnam's Magazine, September 1853

Image Gallery--Traveling the West

	Thinking Points
	Where did the major railroad lines originate and terminate? How might politics have determined these routes, especially their originating terminuses? How do the railroad and wagon routes west relate to the physical geography of the region? How is the availability of water shown on the maps? How might this be an important issue for the development of railroad, wagon train and trade routes?

The transport of European and then American people and goods across the North American continent spread incrementally from the East Coast, over the Appalachians via land and water. The rivers, from the Saint Lawrence to the Potomac and Ohio, were critical passageways, and the watershed of the Mississippi, while thought of as a vertical pathway, was truly an east-west water highway, with its valleys easing the way west. Native American cross-country paths, used for centuries before European contact, formed the basis for many later post roads, highways and railroads.

The Oregon country, with its active fur trade and abundant wheat and lumber, became a target for settlers early on. They needed wagon roads to carry them west, and the federal government sent Army troops to survey and build these roads. Long-established trade routes, such as the Santa Fe trail, were surveyed and improved. These expeditions, along with those of later topographic and military engineers who surveyed lands for potential railroad routes, continued to fill in the map of the West.

The railroad network transformed the nation, allowing fast transport across the country, and binding together scattered regions of the West and South with the urban centers of the East. Railroads, no longer just a means to get from point A to point B, offered tourist transit to the Yosemite Valley and to Yellowstone National Park, the first of the national parks, established in 1872. The West became a destination.