Eugene Moy, a Chinese scholar, gave the community an opportunity to hear him speak about the Chinese laborers involved in building the railroad at the Santa Clarita History Center at Hart Park on Sunday afternoon.
Attendees got the chance to sit outside near the history center and hear Moy pass along his knowledge of local history.
Moy began the conversation discussing the Pacific Railway Act during the Civil War and how the North and South were talking about the potential terminus of the transcontinental railroad.
“And so, the Congress … couldn’t make a decision. But then, once the Civil War started, and the South seceded from the Union, and the Congress actually had an easier job,” Moy said. “They just said, ‘OK, well, now we can pass this law. And here’s where the route will be. It will start from Omaha, and from that point on, then the rest was the follow up implementation,’ encouraging investors to help build a railway that went out to the Pacific.”
He added that, at the time, there were a lot of low-level merchants who were not wealthy. But Congress offered incentives for the construction of the transcontinental railroad.
“You would get so many thousand(s) per mile, and you’d get land on either side … And that, that was an incentive for investors, an investment group … to organize and really start with the construction,” Moy said.
Moy recalled some memories during the talk about when he lived in south Los Angeles.
He said that his family lived near train tracks and he and his brother loved to run out to the train tracks.
“And my little brother and I just loved going running out there when the trains came, you know, you throw rocks … and don’t tell anybody … you know what we did? We tried to, there were open box cars … with doors open on both sides, and we would throw from one side and not the other, see if we could do it. So, we got good at it,” Moy said.
He asked the audience if anyone lived near train tracks and if they had done the same thing.
After the hour-and-a-half conversation, attendees were able to ask questions about the railroads and Moy’s career and research.
For video, visit https://youtu.be/5ZBZEu1pNTs
