In 1864, the United States began building the Union Pacific Railroad (America's transcontinental railroad), with total investment exceeding 60 million US Dollars.
Everyone could see the future value of this railroad; once it was completed, the West Coast and East Coast would no longer be far apart.
The cargo transported by rail would far surpass that moved by ship, and the economic value contained therein could be inflated without limit.
Precisely because of this, Union Pacific executives like Thomas set up a movable-property credit company, swindling money from the Government Office on one side while harvesting money from shareholders on the other.
In 1872, during the election season, the New York Sun exposed all these scandals, and for a time the entire American public was in an uproar.
