In the early days when the gold seekers sought San Francisco across the Isthmus, around the Horn, or by way of the trail, it is said that a Dutch landlord in San Francisco greeted his guests with the query: “Did you come the Horn around, the Isthmus across, or the land over?” Through some such distinction from the waterways, the wagon road from the Missouri came by its name, and to-day the railroad that succeeded it is known everywhere as the Overland Route. The railway came in the face of opposition and predictions of disaster. The builders were men to whom difficulty merely meant more effort, men who were not to be denied. The Pacific Railroads, as they were styled, were two; the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific. Starting, one from the center, the other from the extreme westward verge of the United States, they rapidly moved towards a junction; the Union Pacific being built westward from Council Bluffs; the Southern Pacific eastward from Sacramento. On May 10, 1869, they met at Promontory, Utah, and then and there was signalized the spanning of the continent by the driving of the golden spike. In the presence of eleven hundred people, this last spike was driven into a tie of polished California laurel by Leland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific, and Thomas C. Durant, president of the Union Pacific. A prayer was said, the pilots of the engines touched, and a libation of wine was poured between, and the message, “The last rail is laid, the last spike driven, and the Pacific Railroad is completed,” was flashed to the President of the United States. By a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, the beginning of the Overland Route is at Council Bluffs, in Iowa. The “Bluffs,” according to tradition, were for centuries the meeting place of Indians to settle tribal disputes—a supreme court place of the aborigines. The city antedates Omaha many years, and has buildings that were old when Omaha was born. As a place of beauty and much activity Council Bluffs is well worth a pause in a journey to visit. The first rails of the Overland Route were laid westward from Omaha in July, 1865. There was no rail line between Omaha and Des Moines, and the first seventy-horse power engine was brought by wagons from Des Moines to begin the work of construction. Ties came from Michigan and Pennsylvania at a cost sometimes of $2.50 each. All supplies had to be brought from the East. [Illustration: OMAHA, METROPOLIS OF NEBRASKA, IN FIFTY YEARS HAS GROWN FROM A VILLAGE TO ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CITIES OF THE WEST]