Who Wants to Work on That?

Charles Crocker, former dry-goods merchant, was an outspoken, in-your-face kind of guy, and President of the Central Pacific Railroad.  A practical man, he was a hands-on president who didn't take to budget and plans of the financial side of things.  He wanted to be in the thick of the construction action, sharing in the dangers of rock slides, avalanches, and below-zero temperatures that killed many a worker.  Crocker acted like a field marshal, rally troops, plotting strategies and supervising the battles against the elements.

Crocker's biggest problem was the lack of labor.  With the lure of silver and gold in Nevada, why would any man endure back-breaking work for $35 a month when across the mountain fortunes were to be had for less work?  So workers stayed just long enough to get a free ride to the head of the line before taking off across the Sierras to Nevada.

Once the construction reached the Sierra mountains themselves, the dangerous and difficult work was more demanding and the Irishmen, who made up most of the labor force, refused to continue.  Crocker decided that California's Chinese population would be a perfect solution to his problem since they lived in shantytowns as servants, laundymen, and peddlers. 

In early 1865, Crocker's construction boss, James Strobridge, was authorized to hire these men.  He refused, stating that the white workers would walk off the job in force and refuse to work with the Chinese.  He also didn't think the physically smaller Asians could do the job of breaking granite, blasting through the wooded areas, or laying rails and spikes.  Crocker argued that the ancestors of these men had built the Great Wall of China for Heaven's sake!  At that Strobridge relented.

Next time...The Experiment
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Today in Pioneer History: "On May 10,  1869,  the presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet in Promontory, Utah, and drive a ceremonial last spike into a rail line that connects their railroads. This made transcontinental railroad travel possible for the first time in U.S. history. 

Final Two of Big Four

Collis Huntington said of Leland Stanford, "a good businessman, and a clean man in all respects."  Stanford had a rather easy start in California  in 1852 with his two brothers who owned a grocery and mining supply store in several gold camps.  The son of a tavern owner, Stanford was born in 1824 in New York, near Albany.  He and his brothers sold cut wood to Mohawk and Hudson Railroad.  He studied law at age 20 after being somewhat of a dubious student, and after three years was admitted to the bar.  Stanford married Jane Lathrop in 1849 and moved to Wisconsin where he practiced law until his office burned down. In 1852 he joined his brothers in their prosperous California business. 

Stanford was a very deliberate man and entered politics and became governor of California in 1861.  His only child died at age 15.  Stanford founded Stanford Junior University in Palo Alto in memory of his son in 1885.  After Stanford died in 1893, his widow used his wealth to support Sanford University.

The final New Yorker of the Big Four, Charles Crocker, was born in Troy in 1822, the son of a saloon owner.  His father and brothers went to Indiana for farmland and 14 year old "Bull" Crocker was left in charge of his mother and sister at home.  Crocker worked on the Hudson River ferry and in the Renasseler and Santiago Railroad Station.  After the family joined his father in Indiana, Charles left home and went west, joining a wagon train bound for California in 1850. There Charles tried mining and opened a dry goods store in Sacramento in 1852.  His store burned down also, but Crocker rebuilt it and prospered.

When Theodore Judah brought his railroad vision to the "Big Four", Crocker was enthusiastic.  Charles was known to his partners as a hard-drinking, profane and "bull-voiced" man - but they recognized his value to them.  When the problems of building the Central Pacific seemed insurmountable, he was ready, willing and able to take charge.

Next time...The Partnership Prospers
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On April 23, 1859, William Byers distributes the first newspaper ever published in the frontier boomtown of Denver, beating a rival publisher by a mere 20 minutes.  In Byers’ case, his competitor was the Cherry Creek Pioneer. Byers set to work on the first edition of his newspaper shortly after he arrived in Denver in March, working with a handpress in the attic of a local saloon.

An Engineering Visionary

By 1860 young engineer, Theodore Judah, had solved the problem debated for so long in Congress of how to get the railroad through the Sierras by way of the Donner Pass.  He envisioned a route with several tunnels through the mountains.

Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1826, Theodore Dehone Judah was the son of Rev. Henry Judah, pastor of St. Paul's Church in Troy, New York where the family moved when Theodore was just seven years old.  He was a withdrawn boy and at 11 years old was enrolled in Rensselear Polytechnic Institute in 1837.  A professor there by the name of Amos Eaton was an early railroad enthusiast at a time most people thought the railroad was just a silly fad.  Judah was strongly influenced by the professor in his career.

Judah left college after two years to become a surveyor's assistant on the railroad where he honed his engineering skills.  While working on a job in Massachusetts, he met the daughter of the wealthy John J. Pierce.  Anna and Theodore were married in 1847 and moved to the Niagara Falls area of New York where he worked as an engineer for the Buffalo and New York railroad line. 

Judah became a enthusiast  of a rail line to the Pacific even before he moved to California in 1854 where he was to build the Sacramento Valley Railroad.  There Judah become obsessed with the Sierra Nevada and began his study on how to build a transcontinental route to the East.

When he found the answer he and his investors - Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, and Collis Huntington, known as the Big Four - organized plans for the Central Pacific Railroad.   Judah avoided mention of a transcontinental railroad but he did point out the profits to be had from a railroad through the Donner Pass to Nevada mining camps.  In 1861, the Central Pacific Railroad Company was founded with Judah as chief engineer. 

After a trip via the Panama Railroad back to Washington, DC to lobby for government aid for his railroad, Judah died of yellow fever in 1863 with his railroad only in its infancy.

Next time...Building across America
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On April 9, 1859,  a 23-year-old  Missouri youth named Samuel Langhorne Clemens receives his steamboat pilot’s license. During his time as a pilot, he picked up the term “Mark Twain,” a boatman’s call noting that the river was only two fathoms deep, the minimum depth for safe navigation. When Clemens returned to writing in 1861, working for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, he wrote a humorous travel letter signed by “Mark Twain” and continued to use the pseudonym for nearly 50 years.