The Gold Rush prompted the transcontinental railroad to be built. Entrepreneur Asa Whitney recognized that travel across the country, specifically to the West Coast, was expensive, dangerous, and time consuming, and that a railroad would expedite the process. Later in 1860, an engineer mapped out the best place for the railroad to be built and formed the Central Pacific Railroad Company with a group of investors. Within a year, President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act into law. This allowed the Central Pacific Railroad Company and the Union Pacific Railroad company to begin building tracks towards each other to meet on Promontory Summit. In exchange, the government gave each company 12,800 acres of land and $48,000 in bonds for every