Horse-drawn carts being used for construction on a segment of Southern Pacific Railroad in a mountainous region, ca.1860

At center, five carts can be seen at the bottom of a mound of loose-earth, above which five more can be seen with their carts tilted back toward the viewer. Nine men attend to the lower carts.

In the distance, lumber can be seen on the mountainside just above the road.; Photoprint reads: "None of the facilities for large scale construction work were to be had when the first lines of the Southern Pacific and its parent organization (Central Pacific) were being built in the West. One-horse dump carts, wheelbarrows and Chinese laborers took the place of the modern steam derricks and large scrapers. Dynamite was not then in use and black powder wa the only explosive used in blasting through hundreds of feet of solid granite walls.