Abraham Lincoln."
Immediately upon receipt of advice as to the President's action on December 2nd, 1863, the citizens of Omaha regardless of their connection with the road arranged to break ground for the Union Pacific Railroad and to properly celebrate the commencement of the work and especially the selection of their city as the eastern terminus, which was accordingly done. The spot selected for the initial point was near the Ferry Landing and not far above where the Union Pacific shops are now located. This particular spot with the first mile of track constructed, was long ago swept away by the Missouri River.
The ceremonies were commenced by asking the Divine Blessing on the enterprise in a prayer by the Rev. T. B. Lemon, Pastor of the First Methodist Church in Omaha. The Reverend Gentleman petitioned that the road make one the people of the East and West. That it would result in peopling the waste places of the West; that it might lend security to those on the frontier, and other similar requests, all of which have been fulfilled to a degree that is past being coincidental. The first earth was then removed by Governor Saunders of Nebraska Territory, Mayor Kennedy of Omaha, George Francis Train and others assisting. Congratulatory messages were received from different parts of the country. Speeches were made by A. J. Poppleton and others, the day being wound up by a banquet in the evening. The speech of the day was delivered by George Francis Train, then in his heyday, which is so characteristic of the man and of the ideas then prevalent relative to the road and the results of its construction as to warrant the following somewhat lengthy extracts:
"I have no telegrams to read, no sentiments to recite. The official business being over and as I happen to be lying around loose in this part of the country at this particular time, it gives me a chance to meet some of the live men of Nebraska at the inauguration of the grandest enterprise under God the world had ever witnessed.
"America is the stage, the world the audience of today, while one act of the drama represents the booming of cannon on the Rapidan, the Cumberland and the Rio Grande, sounding the death knell of rebellion, the next scene has the booming of cannon on both sides the Missouri to celebrate the grandest work of peace that ever engaged the energies of man. The great Pacific Railroad is commenced and if you know the men who have hold of the enterprise as well as I do, no doubt would arise as to its speedy completion.
"Four thousand years ago the Pyramids were started, but they simply represented the vanity of man. The Chinese wall was grand in conception, but built to break the tide of invasion. The Suez Canal was gigantic, but how limited all those things appear in comparison to this enterprise.
"Before the first century of our nation's birth we may see in the New York Depots, some strange Pacific Railroad notices such as,
'European passengers for Japan will please take the night train. Passengers for China this way. African and Asiatic freight must be distinctly marked For Pekin via San Francisco.'
"Ere ten years go by I intend to let the European traveller get a new sensation by standing on the ridge pole of the American Nation and sliding off into the sea.
"One day a dispatch will come in—we have tapped a mountain of copper, nineteen miles square, later on—we have just opened up another field of coal—or—we have struck another iron mountain this morning—when Eureka—a telegram electrifies the speculators in Wall Streets and gold drops below par—at ten this morning we struck a pick into a mountain of solid gold.