The Denver Pacific Railway and Telegraph Company was organized in November 1867 to build and operate a railroad from Denver, Colorado to connect with the transcontinental Union Pacific in Cheyenne, Wyoming. In March 1869, Congress provided land grants for the Denver Pacific from Denver to Cheyenne and for the final 180 miles of the Kansas Pacific Railway from Pond Creek, Kansas to Denver. Service for the entire route of the Denver Pacific commenced in June 1870. Two months later the first trains over the Kansas Pacific rail line entered Denver, fulfilling the terms of the Pacific Railroad Act of 1866, which called for a line from Kansas City via Denver to a point on the Union Pacific in Wyoming. The Denver Pacific merged into Union Pacific Railway Company in 1880.