Construction of the first transcontinental railroad was delayed in the years before the Civil War while Congress debated whether to create a northern or southern route. Once the Southern states seceded from the Union in 1861, however, Congress quickly approved the funding of the railroad along the proposed northern route. Two railroad companies were charged with the construction: the Union Pacific, working west from the Missouri River, and the Central Pacific, working east from Sacramento.

One of the primary challenges in the more difficult and dangerous construction of the western portion of the railroad was to attract a labor force both willing and physically able to perform the work. Because mining and agriculture offered better pay, only four percent of the workers needed responded to initial advertisements for the job. Charles Crocker—one of the so-called "Big Four" industrialists who formed the Central Pacific Railroad and the project's construction supervisor—proposed a solution. Citing the construction of the Great Wall as proof that Chinese laborers could handle such heavy work, Crocker redirected his recruitment efforts toward an impoverished rural province of China.

Inspired mostly by the hopes of returning home with money to support their families, thousands of Chinese men accepted positions with the Central Pacific. Despite an average size of only 4'10" and 120 lbs., they proved extremely adept at carrying out such dangerous tasks as working in baskets lowered into canyons or spending extended periods underground building tunnels. In spite of these efforts, the Chinese received lower wages, worked longer hours at the most dangerous jobs, and suffered more severe treatment than did their Caucasian co-workers. While one strike did persuade the Central Pacific managers to stop whipping the Chinese laborers, a similar effort to obtain wages on par with the railroad's non-Chinese labor force was met with a harsh response: the company cut-off the workers' food and supplies and created a "posse," a mob of white men, that left the Chinese no other option but to return to work at the lower wage scale.

The Central Pacific's unwillingness to increase the Chinese workers' wages, and its failure to even identify the corpses of those who died during construction, are indicative of a general reaction to the new labor force. Anti-Chinese sentiment had been growing since the days of the Gold Rush (1848–1855), driven by both racism and the fear that imported labor was driving down wages of American citizens. After The Naturalization Act of 1870 limited immigration to "white persons and persons of African descent," the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited Chinese immigrants from obtaining US citizenship, voting, owning property, and testifying in legal proceedings.

At the same time, the Chinese workers' essential contribution to the construction effort could not be overlooked: they represented as much as 90 percent of the railroad's total labor force. In recognition of their work, the Central Pacific selected an eight-man Chinese crew to drive the last spike on May 10, 1869, the day the railroad was completed. Still, the Chinese paid a substantial price: 1,200 laborers perished in accidents, while thousands more died in the hazardous ocean passage or contracted smallpox once they arrived in the United States.

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