The America's National Parks Podcast is sponsored by L.L. Bean.

Now through April 28th is National Park Week.

L.L.Bine has partnered with the National Park Week. L. L. Bean has partnered with the National Park Foundation

to help you find your park.

With more than 400 National Parks,

there's a good chance you'll find one close to home.

Discover the perfect place to celebrate National Park Week

at find your park.com. On May 10th, 1869, in Promontory Summit, Utah, two sets of ordinary railroad tracks met under extraordinary circumstances.

Together the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroad companies,

building from Sacramento, California and Omaha, Nebraska, joined to revolutionize

travel.

Before that day, a single person would pay a thousand dollars to travel from east to west in the United States.

On a steam engine train, it only cost $150.

More than 1,700 miles of track were laid in just seven years, across deserts, over plains, and through mountains.

Its completion was one of the most defining moments in our nation's history.

I'm Jason Epperson, and on today's episode of America's National Parks,

the Golden Spike National Historical Park,

and the nation's first transcontinental railroad,

celebrating its 150th anniversary this May.

Here's Abigail Trebeu. Esa Whitney, an entrepreneur from New York, was the first person to suggest a federally funded railroad stretching to the Pacific.

At that time, around 9,000 miles of trails existed east of the Missouri River.

He presented the idea to Congress in 1845, but the plan hit many roadblocks and lacked support. 15 years later Theodore Judah an engineer found the perfect

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