nion Pacific had 500 miles to which to overcome a gradual rise of 5,000 feet.About two years after the commencement of construction, the line had completed less than 50 miles of running track. Central Pacific's construction superintendent, J. H. Strobridge, needed 5,000 laborers "for constant and permanent work." But the largest force that he was able to assemble at any time during the spring of 1865 was 800. Charles Crocker was the first to suggest Chinese were the answer to no labor, Chinese were in search of employment, but Irish Construction Superintendent J.H. Stobridge said, I will not boss Chinese. I will not be responsible for work done on the road done by Chinese labor. Stobridge changes his mind because Labor was scarce and unreliable. He then experimented with 50 Chinese, paying them $28 a month. They were restricted to only filling dump cars. But they proved to be so good at that task that they were soon given the duty of driving the carts as well as loading them, he let them try picks on softer excavations, with excellent results.Company President Leland Stanford praised the new laborers as quiet. Peaceful, industrious, economical ready and apt to learn all the different kinds of work involved in building a railroad. Crocker was particularly happy that the Chinese did not seem inclined to go on strike. No danger of strikes among them, he reported, We are training them to all kinds of labor: blasting, driving horses, handling rock as well as pick and shovel. In the fall of 1865 the Chinese laborers of the Central Pacific, scornfully called by some, "Crocker's pets," came up against Cape Horn, a nearly perpendicular rocky promontory. At this point the American River is 1,400 feet below the line of the road. Chinese workmen were lowered from the top of the cliff in wicker baskets. The basket men chipped and drilled holes for explosives, and then scrambled up the lines, or swung away from the explosives, while gunpow...
