San Antonio College Library

Chronicles the events that took place in the thirty years it took to complete the first transcontinental railroad, profiling the key players in its development, the major setbacks the workers faced, and the public objections to the railroad's completion.

The Dual System of Rapid Transit set the pattern for growth in New York City for decades to come and helped provide millions of families with abetter quality of life.

In 1880, ancient-growth forest still covered two-thirds of West Virginia, but by the 1920s lumbermen had denuded the entire region. Ronald Lewis explores the transformation in these mountain counties precipitated by deforestation. As the only state that lies entirely within the Appalachian region, West Virginia provides an ideal site for studying the broader social impact of deforestation in Appalachia, the South, and the eastern United States. Eventually,...

"The Railroad and the State is the first book to examine as a coherent whole the complex and changing relationship between the U.S. Army and American railroads during the nineteenth century. It details the Army's role in the development of the preeminent technology of the era, including the assignment of military engineers to assist early railroad planning and construction, the military use of railroads during the Civil War, and the exchange of military...

The account of an unprecedented feat of engineering, vision, and courage. It is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad-the investors who risked their businesses and money; the enlightened politicians who understood its importance; the engineers and surveyors who risked, and sometimes lost, their lives; and the Irish and Chinese immigrants, the defeated Confederate soldiers, and the other laborers who did the backbreaking and...

"Sunset Limited explores the railroad's development and influence - especially as it affected land settlement, agriculture, water policy, and the environment - and offers a new perspective on the tremendous, often surprising, role the company played in shaping the American West." "Based on his unprecedented and extensive research into the company's historical archives, Richard Orsi finds that, contrary to conventional understanding, the Southern Pacific...