November 30, 1868       Bloomfield Gazette
Track laid today: Union Pacific - 3 1/2 miles.
                         Central Pacific - 3 miles.

Daily, banner headlines across the United States shouted the news. It was a race! And the prize was control of the rail lines linking East with West.

East from California, imported Chinese labor feverishly laid rail line for the Central Pacific Railroad. And just as frantically the U.P. pushed to meet its opponent as close by the shores of the blue Pacific as possible.

U.P. labor was, in the main, Irish. Take the Cullens, for instance: the father Sheamus, his wife Nora, and their two children, Mike and Feena. With a band of newly recruited U.P. workmen, Sheamus and his family traveled west to Omaha by freight car and river boat. It was a bewildering trip for a family just arrived from Ireland's County Clare—but nothing compared to what lay in wait on the ever-expanding Western frontier.

One day, the Central Pacific and the U.P. would come together at Promontory Point, Utah Territory, to drive the last, golden spike that marked the meeting of the rails. But before that momentous day, each of the Cullens would face the exciting challenge of a new life in their trek westward along the rail lines.

From the dust jacket