Huntington and Hopkins

The "Big Four: of the Central Pacific Railroad were all easterners who had gone to Sacramento during the Gold Rush days.  They grew wealthy, not by panning for gold, but by selling supplies to miners.  They were ruthless and tightfisted, with visions of turning the dream of a railroad into a reality.

The main man in the railroad vision was Collis Porter Huntington, a Connecticut born Yankee, son of a village tinker and a talent with the ax, and a hot temper.  He left home in 1839, hiring out as a farm hand for a year before he moved back to New York with a mere $84 in his pocket.  There he opened a store with his brother until the news of the Gold Rush called him west.  With a supply of groceries and whiskey he boarded a ship for Panama and on to California.

After one day with the pick and shovel, he opened a tent in Sacramento selling supplies to miners.  In 1855 he and a partner opened Huntington and Hopkins Hardware, becoming one of the more prosperous in California. 

Mark Hopkins was the oldest of the "Big Four", born in Hudson, New York, in 1813.  The Hopkins family moved to Michigan when Mark was 12, but he returned to New York four years later and became a store clerk before becoming a partner in the law firm of Hopkins and Hughes.  Hopkins sold his part of the business in 1849 and left for California.  There he opened a grocery store in Placerville in 1850. 

Mark was a hard-bargainer and when he was introduced to Collis Huntington, they had a lot in common.  Huntington said of Hopkins, "I never thought anything finished until Hopkins looked at it, which was praise enough." 

In 1856-1857, Huntington and Hopkins met two other men from upstate New York - Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker...

Next time...The Remaining Two of the Big Four
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Today in Pioneer History: "On April 19, 1976, A Wichita, Kansas commission votes not to rehire policeman Wyatt Earp after he beats up a candidate for county sheriff.  A Wichita commission decided that Wyatt’s violent behavior was unacceptable and did not rehire him as a police officer. As the town newspaper conceded, 'It is but justice to Earp to say he has made an excellent officer,' but the young lawman had to learn to control his passions and play the political game."

The Ground Breaking Railroad

On July 1, 1862 the Pacific Railroad Act was signed into law by President Lincoln.  It gave authority to the Central Pacific to build a railroad and telegraph line from Sacramento to the Nevada line and created a new company, the Union Pacific to build westward from Nebraska.  Land grants of 10 square miles were awarded for each mile of track laid.  Financial aid of loan bonds payable in 30 years at 6% annual interest was also given, amounting to $16,000 for each mile of track on flatland, $32,000 for each mile of track through the high desert land, and $48,000 for each mile through the mountains.  Quite a lucrative offer!

Ground breaking ceremonies began in Sacramento on January 8, 1863.  At the time the Central Pacific had only $156,000 on hand.  Chief engineer Theodore Judah estimated that the first 50 miles of track had to be completed before the government loans or land grants would be available.

The "Big Four" pledged their own savings to obtain the rails shipped from the East.  Huntington went to New York and Boston to raise more money but no one was interested.  War bonds were a much better investment in 1863.

The "Big Four" did not give up-they managed to lay 24 miles of flatland rail east of Sacramento that was previously designated mountainous country. That gave them an additional $768,000 in loan bonds plus opened up the bankers in the East to invest money in the project.

All this time Theodore Judah clashed with the rest of the "Big Four" over their focus on profits over well-built railroads.  When he died in the fall of 1863 of yellow fever, the "Big Four" were soundly in charge with no one to clash with.  The money was again scarce and construction lagged.  Huntington again went to Washington to lobby (and buy off) Congress to pass the Pacific Railroad Act of 1864.
Something else happened in Washington...a new acquaintance. 

Next time...A New Acquaintance
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On April 12, 1961, aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space. During the flight, the 27-year-old test pilot and industrial technician also became the first man to orbit the planet, a feat accomplished by his space capsule in 89 minutes.

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.