“We have Amazon Prime now that delivers things in 24 hours. “The sense of time and space changed,” he said, including how far people figured they could easily travel, send their goods or buy things. The train changed that in a generation - and, in 1883, would even lead to creating standard time zones to aid train schedules (instead of every city figuring that noon was when the sun hit its highest point in the sky there). Brad Westwood, senior public historian at the Utah Division of History, noted that for thousands of years, people could travel no faster on land than a horse could carry them. It literally changed the sense of time and space.Cannon notes people can join such pioneer heritage groups as the Daughters of Utah Pioneers only if their ancestors immigrated before 1869. The Golden Spike officially ended the pioneer era. Tribune file photoThis 1936 photo shows a participants in a Mormon Pioneer wagon train reenactment. A week after the Golden Spike completed the railroad, people could travel from New York to San Francisco for $150, first class (with sleeping cars) and $70 for emigrant class. The cost to cross the Plains by wagon was about $1,000. And death was common in wagon trains from cholera, dysentery and other illnesses - but not on trains. “It was actually more expensive to travel by wagon than by train,” Alexander said. The train cut that down to a week” or less, Thomas Alexander, an emeritus BYU history professor, said in an interview.Ĭannon added that, “You could get all the way from Omaha to Salt Lake City in about 30-31 hours if everything worked correctly.” Before the railroad, “It took about three months to come to Utah by wagon. Immigration became faster, easier, cheaper and safer.The Salt Lake Tribune searched writings of historians - and interviewed several modern ones - to look for ways that the railroad changed the world and the state. “Next to winning the Civil War and abolishing slavery, building the transcontinental railroad … was the greatest achievement of the American people in the 19th century,” Ambrose wrote in his book “ Nothing Like It In the World.” Cities nationwide closed businesses to await the news via telegraph and to erupt in jubilation. The Tabernacle in downtown Salt Lake City was packed with 7,000 celebrating people. Chicago threw the parade of the century - seven miles long, with tens of thousands participating.
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