There was just one, minor problem with the trans-continental railroad: It wasn’t trans-continental. The Missouri River, slicing between Omaha (Nebraska) and Council Bluffs (Iowa), left a quarter-mile gap that wouldn’t be bridged (with a “most annoying” bridge) until four years later. So, to really get from the West coast to the East coast, you had to be ferried across. Now look, I don’t mean to diminish the beauty of Council Bluffs, but it’s got to have come as a minor setback to, after whizzing through five states of mountains, deserts, and prairie, to suddenly…well…y’know, stop, and paddle along.