The Union Pacific Railroad is renowned in history as America’s first transcontinental railroad and is one of the strongest companies in the railroad industry today. Now, in the first of a two-volume work, noted historian Maury Klein thrillingly recreates the powerful personalities and dramatic events that led to the construction of this legendary railroad and ultimately to one of America's largest corporations.

The laying of the first rails in the summer of 1865, from Omaha west, began an audacious and dangerous venture. Finding a route through the unknown and forbidding terrain of the desert and mountains was but one of the overwhelming problems that plagued the progress of the railroad from the start—there was a constant shortage of timber, a constant need for water for the locomotives, a tough, hard-drinking work force that needed to be controlled; and the railroad and its crew required constant vigilance from Indian attacks.

Perhaps even more crucial to the struggle were the colorful wheelings and dealings that were waged in executive boardrooms in New York and Boston and in the chambers of Congress as dreamers and scoundrels, politicians and patriots together forged a pioneering enterprise in transportation. Despite all obstacles, the joining of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads was accomplished, and the ceremony of the Golden Spike that "linked the continent" triumphantly took place at Promontory Point on May 10, 1869.

Fully illustrated with over one hundred historic photographs and maps, UNION PACIFIC recounts a magnificent human achievement that opened the western United States and helped elevate the American nation into a world power.