Fortunately for the Central Pacific, Chinese immigrants provided a vast pool of cheap, plentiful, and easily exploitable labor. By 1865, the number of Chinese in California reached close to fifty thousand, at least 90 percent of them young men. In the spring of that year, when white laborers demanded higher pay and threatened to strike, Charles Crocker, the Central Pacific’s chief contractor, ordered Superintendent Strobridge to recruit Chinese workers. The tactic worked, and the white workers agreed to return, as long as no Chinese were hired, but by then the Central Pacific had the upper hand and hired fifty Chinese anyway—former miners, laundrymen, domestic servants, and market gardeners—to do the hard labor of preparing the route and laying track. Many claimed the railroad did this as a reminder to the white workers that others were ready to replace them. Needless to say, this did not contribute to harmony between the whites and the Chinese. (Chang 55-56)

The photo shows Chinese transcontinental railroad workers in the Sierra Nevada. During the contruction of the Central Pacific Railroad, the Chinese received the least pay for the riskiest work, and used nitroglycerin to blast a path along granite cliffs. By the time the railroad was finished, almost one in ten Chinese laborers had died from the effort. (California State Railroad Museum) (Chang, photo inserted between pages 80-81)