Getty Museum
Bloomer Cut, 63 feet high, looking West.
Creator
Alfred A. HartAmerican Photographer · 1816–1908
All works by this person →As official photographer of the Central Pacific Railroad, Alfred A. Hart spent five years documenting the construction of this legendary railroad from Sacramento, California, to Promontory Summit, Utah. Between 1864 and 1869, Hart accompanied the engineers and crews as they made their way across valleys, deserts, and mountains, building trestles, digging tunnels, and constructing enormous embankme
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1866–1869
- Medium
- Albumen silver print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
- Object ID
- 3c604461-1147-4658-923a-c77ba830c7df
Between two rocky, imposing, vertical walls, sixty-three feet high and eight hundred feet long, passes a single pair of railroad tracks. This stereograph dramatically depicts the Bloomer Cut corridor along the Central Pacific Railroad. Workers used five hundred kegs of gunpowder a day to blast through the naturally cemented gravel that formed this part of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The gravel was so hard that they sometimes had difficulty drilling far enough in to place the gunpowder. After a successful blast, the gravel was removed one wheelbarrow at a time. It was harrowing work, and not even the overseer was spared from danger: he lost an eye after one faulty blast. The successful construction of this passage, which still exists, serves as a testament to the hard work and determination of the men who built the transcontinental railroad. Gift of Weston J. and Mary M. Naef
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