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Central Pacific Railroad's Chinese immigrants

Posted by Michael Wong on January 8, 2012 at 22:50

Out of the 13,500 labourers employed by US Central Pacific to build a railroad spanning the country, 12,000 were Chinese immigrants. This was due to the fact that young men were involved in the Civil War, and the labour pool was sparse.Eight Chinese labourers were selected to lay the last rail when the project was completed in 1869 – a testament to the dedication of those Asian-Americans who worked on the Transcontinental Railroad.

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