Like the growth of New York and Chicago, the development of California had an important effect on the history of American railway transportation. Although it had been agitated for many years, the project for a railroad from the Mississippi to the Pacific Coast had not reached the construction stage until the congressional acts of 1862 and 1864 provided for a line to be built from Omaha to San Francisco. The Union Pacific Railroad had been incorporated to build the eastern end, while the western end was to be constructed by the Central Pacific Railroad Company, a California corporation. The latter act, that of 1864, had given the roads substantial financial assistance and half the public land on a strip forty miles wide along the line of the track. Many difficulties had stood in the way--lack of funds, problems of construction and inadequate labor supply. Eventually they had all been overcome by the energy and skill of such men as Stanford, Crocker and Huntington. Imported Chinese coolies had met the labor demand and construction was speeded up. Actual building had begun in 1863 and six years later the two roads met at Promontory Point near Ogden in Utah, where the last spike was driven, the engines Facing on the single track, Half a world behind each back. During the four years following the completion of the transcontinental line, 24,000 miles of new railroad were constructed, much of which was built into the wilderness ahead of settlement. So great an expansion, coming at a time when immense stretches of new land were being opened and industry being developed on a large scale, could hardly fail to result in over-speculation. The results appeared in 1873. Jay Cooke and Company, the most important financial concern in the country had been back of the Northern Pacific Railroad, marketing large quantities of its bonds and so providing capital for construction, the purchase of equipment, the payment of wages and so on. Obviously a large amount of money was thus being put into an enterprise from which returns would come only after a considerable period; and yet construction had to be continued, or what was already invested would be lost. What Cooke was doing for the Northern Pacific was being done for the Chesapeake and Ohio by Fisk and Hatch, and by other firms for speculative enterprises in every corner of the land.