In the 1850's a new method called the Bessemer process made steel making faster and cheaper.In 1873 American steel mills made about 115,000 tons of steel.By 1910 outpout had increased to 24 million tons, making the U.S. the worlds top producer of steel.One man to amass a fortune in steel is Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie would become a dominant force in steel for two decades until he sold his company to John Pierpont Morgan for $480 Million. In 1862, the Pacific Railroad Act chartered the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad Companies, and tasked them with building a transcontinental railroad that would link the United States from east to west. Over the next seven years, the two companies would race toward each other from Sacramento, California on the one side and Omaha, Nebraska on the other, struggling against great risks before they met at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869.