building the american landscape - Univerza v Novi Gorici

[…] Thus there gradually evolved in villages and on farms throughout the Midwest
the uninterrupted lawn stretching from the house to edge of the street or road; and
along the street or road trees were soon planted. It was thus that a familiar feature
of the American rural landscape came into being, a feature so familiar indeed that
few inquire as to its origin. As they were enacted across the country, the herd laws
not only freed farmers from an increasingly burdensome expense, they transformed
the rural environment” 191 . At the same time, the railroad became the fastest and
most efficient means in the advance westwards. In 1828 the Baltimore & Ohio was
built, the first railroad with carriages pulled by horses. The first steam locomotives
appeared a few months later. From the 1830s onwards, small stretches of railroad
developed in the East of the country. In 1840 the United States had 5,360 km of
railroad, but by 1860 the network had been extended to approximately 50,000 km.
Enthusiasm for the railroad in the first thirty years was such that private individuals
invested 1,250 million dollars into their construction 192 . The idea of a
transcontinental railroad only came later in 1845 after the Californian gold rush. The
Pacific Railway Act was passed in 1862. This measure authorised the construction of
the railroad across the American continent and awarded free lands along the route
to the contracting companies. The first Transcontinental Railroad was built between
1863 and 1869 by the Union Pacific Railroad and Central Pacific Railroad of
California, from which it got its name of Pacific Railroad. It connected Council Bluffs,
Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska (via Ogden, Utah, and Sacramento, California) with the
Pacific Ocean, at Oakland, California [Figures 130‐131]. As for the toll roads, rivalry
between companies led to a duplication of the route. The route of the Southern
Pacific Transportation Company ended decades later by joining operations with
Central Pacific, to then merge with them only in 1885. There was a proper challenge
between investors to construct the railroad infrastructures. Whoever arrived first at
the final goal could count on lands awarded by law, but also on guaranteed profits,
as well as the publicity from the success of the enterprise. Telegraph lines were
built at the same time as the railroad and these brought about the decline of the
191 Ibid., pp. 66‐67
192 For this data see JONES, A., Maldwyn, The Limits of Liberty American History 1607‐1992, London,
Oxford University Press, 1995 [first ed. 1983] (Italian translation Storia degli Stati Uniti d’America.
Dalle prime colonie inglesi ai giorni nostri, Milan, Bompiani 2011, p. 107)
114