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Curve line built by Irish settlers

Railroad construction offered jobs, security

Courtesy photo Irish Pennsylvania Railroad Workers operate machinery during railroad construction in the 1850s.

The world famous Horseshoe Curve continues to be considered a modern marvel. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places, deemed a National Historic Landmark and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

Those accolades are thanks to hundreds of Irish immigrants who settled in the area and took up the task of carving the rail passage through the Allegheny Mountains using picks, shovels, mules and carts — and a few explosives.

Between 1845-55, more than 1.5 million Irish adults and children came to America to escape the potato famine. They were desperately poor, and many were suffering from starvation and disease, according to the Constitutional Rights Foundation.

Those who settled in this region, hungry for jobs, were hired by the Pennsylvania Railroad for the labor-intensive task of building the curve to get passengers and cargo over the mountain.

Work on the curve began in 1850, when the massive front of the Allegheny Mountain, at 2,161 feet above sea level, blocked the westward advance.

Mark Frederick, director of content at the Railroaders Memorial Museum, said the mountain led to the creation of the Gallitzin Tunnels as well as the Curve and both were dug out of near-impenetrable geographic formations.

“Using switchbacks, excavations and pure innovation, engineers reduced grades and effectively conquered the mountains,” he said.

It was back-breaking work.

The Irish were recruited for the job because they were former mine workers, mostly from the Ireland counties of Cork, Mayo and Antrim, said Mark Holan, who has an Irish American Blog reporting on Irish history.

In reality, the Irish weren’t often greeted with open arms, said Jared Frederick, a history professor at Penn State.

“The Irish were often considered disposable — even on railroads,” he said.

Despite facing rejection, the Irish endured and for three years worked on the rail line over the mountain.

Their accomplishment remains today as a vital segment of the American economy and part of the nation’s critical east-west rail corridor, Holan said.

“They had been seeking to build new lives for themselves, and they truly put themselves in a lot of harm’s way as they were trying to dig out these terraces on the Allegheny Front with nothing more than pick axes and black powder,” Mark Frederick said.

“The sad fact of the matter is that we know relatively little about the predominantly Irish immigrants who constructed the Curve,” said Jared Frederick, who recently ventured to the Pennsylvania State Archives where he found more than 3,000 file boxes of PRR records dating back to its beginnings.

But his excitement soon turned to dismay when he discovered that there was very little organization to the contents of each box.

“I have no doubt there are files on the Irish workers within that collection, but the task could be like finding a needle in a haystack,” he said.

While the names of the workers are not known, they must be hidden somewhere, he said.

Shanty town

Not only did workers face death from sliding hillsides and black powder explosions, but they also confronted the dark impulse of some fellow workers.

Many railroad workers and their families lived in a shanty town that stood of the Allegheny Mountain.

Mark Frederick said this muddy and sooty campsite was a miserable place to live all year-round.

“The makeshift village was prone to disease, labor unrest and even murder — making an unsafe work environment even more dangerous,” he said.

Jared Frederick uncovered a gruesome tragedy that unfolded at a shanty town in 1852 where the story of murdered father and son made national headlines.

“This episode attests to the danger, volatility and vulnerability these laborers confronted,” he said. “The story of the Irish workers who carved out the Curve is one that is highly pertinent to our times — theirs is a tale that demands empathy.”

Because of the Irish immigrants’ work, the Horseshoe Curve became a reality, Mark Frederick said.

Its completion was celebrated throughout the state and it opened for business on Feb. 15, 1854.

Holan said the 2,375-foot curve reduced the trip between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia from 20 days by wagon to about 15 hours by train.

Today, traveling by train from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia usually takes less than 11 hours, due to stops at various stations, but the fastest Amtrak train, the Pennsylvanian, can make the trip in 7 hours and 29 minutes, according to Amtrak.com.

Jared Frederick said the Irish worked tirelessly to overcome prejudice and prove their worth as immigrant citizens and what they needed most was a chance.

While not much is known about these men, some of their finest work can be seen by those riding the rails, traveling on Veterans Memorial Highway or stopping at the Horseshoe Curve visitors center.

Mirror Staff Writer Cati Keith can be reached at 814-946-7535.

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