Schuyler Colfax

Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House of Representatives, was asked by President Abraham Lincoln on April 14 to take a message to the miners of the West that their prosperity is the prosperity of the Nation. These may have been Lincoln's last words on public subjects, as he was shot later that evening at Ford Theatre in Washington, D.C. In May 1865 Colfax traveled 2000 miles by stagecoach, reaching San Francisco on July 1, 1865. The slow journey emphasized the need for a railroad to the Pacific. Colfax traveled by special train on the new Central Pacific Railroad, 56 miles from Sacramento to Colfax, and along the working sections on horseback and by coach. Track was graded and laid and trains were running to the town of Colfax, named for the Speaker. The Transcontinental Railroad would unite the Atlantic Regions and the Pacific Regions of the Nation. Colfax went on to be Vice-President under Ulysses S. Grant from 1869 to 1873.

Colfax, California · United States