Theodore Judah
Interest in building a transcontinental railroad was strong throughout the 1850s. The United States Congress authorized surveys of several potential routes but was unable to agree on which route to choose.
Civil engineer Theodore Judah deserves much of the credit for developing the specific plan that eventually won Congressional approval. A native of Connecticut, Judah came west in 1854 to build the first railroad on the Pacific Coast, a short line from Sacramento to Folsom. Having completed this modest task, Judah became entranced--some would say "bewitched"--by a grand vision: building a railroad across the continent.
In 1860 Judah made an intensive search for the best crossing of the Sierra Nevada. He located and surveyed a feasible route, making detailed notes on the grade and terrain. Encouraged by his discovery, he drew up articles of association for the Central Pacific Railroad of California. After several rejections, Judah in 1860 turned to four Sacramento merchants for financial backing.
Judah's association with the Big Four proved to be deeply troubling. He wanted the railroad to be built well; they wanted it to be built cheaply so that profits would be high. In October 1863 Judah sailed for New York where he hoped to find other financial backers who might buy out the Big Four. During his trip eastward, Judah became deathly ill with yellow fever. He died shortly after his arrival in New York. Today a simple monument to Theodore Judah stands in the Old Town area of Sacramento. Surely his real monument is the ribbon of iron rails that tied California to the rest of the nation.
The Big Four were the chief entrepreneurs in the building of the first transcontinental railroad. They provided the initial financial backing for the plan proposed by civil engineer Theodore Judah. As directors of the Central Pacific and later the Southern Pacific, they became the wealthiest and most powerful Californians of their generation.
Elected president of the Central Pacific was a Sacramento grocer named Leland Stanford. His gregarious personality suited him perfectly for this position of leadership. He was active in the formation of the state Republican party, and in 1862 he ran successfully for the governorship of California. Later he served as a United States Senator from California.
Vice President of the newly formed corporation was Collis P. Huntington, a successful Sacramento hardware merchant. Huntington's business practices became legendary. His favorite maxim for setting prices was "How badly does the customer want it?" Within the inner circle of the railroad, Huntington was clearly the dominant personality. In later years he would serve as president of the Southern Pacific.
Huntington's partner in the hardware business was Mark Hopkins, elevated to the position of treasurer of the Central Pacific. Several years older than the other partners, Hopkins lacked their driving ambition. His greatest strength was his eye for detail, keeping meticulous accounts of all financial transactions.
Charles Crocker, the fourth member of the group, began his career in California as a seller of dry goods in Sacramento. As a director of the railroad, his greatest contribution was his unflagging energy and enthusiasm. He would serve as overseer of the actual building of the railroad.
The building of the transcontinental railroad depended upon the entrepreneurial skills of the Big Four, the hard work of thousands of laborers, and the generous financial aid of the federal government.
In the fall of 1861 Theodore Judah traveled to Washington, D.C., as a lobbyist for the newly formed Central Pacific Railroad. His task was to secure federal aid to help pay the costs of building the railroad. He was fabulously successful.
Congress in 1862 and 1864 passed the Pacific Railroad Acts. Signed into law by President Lincoln, these acts provided enormous gifts of land and low-interest loans to the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads. The Central Pacific was authorized to build the western portion of the transcontinental railroad beginning in Sacramento, and the Union Pacific was to build the eastern portion starting in Omaha. The loans were paid out at varying rates, from $16,000 to $48,000 per mile of track. The land was doled out in a checkerboard pattern of ten alternate sections (square miles) on each side of the track--half the land in a strip totaling forty miles in width. The railroad thus received from the federal government a total of 11,588,000 acres in California, about 11 1/2 percent of the entire land area of the state. This vast transfer of the public domain made the railroad, by far, the largest private landowner in California.
The actual construction of the transcontinental railroad began on January 8, 1863, at a grand public ceremony in Sacramento. Governor (and railroad president) Leland Stanford threw out the first symbolic shovelful of dirt. From that point forward, the bulk of the work was performed by Chinese labor.
Central Pacific work crews had a relatively easy time laying tracks westward from Sacramento across the flatlands of the Central Valley. But formidable obstacles confronted them once they entered the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Hills needed to be cut down and valleys filled in. Enormous wooden trestles had to be built across deep ravines. Snowsheds were needed along nearly forty miles of track.
The greatest physical challenge was building the Summit Tunnel, a passageway through a quarter-mile of solid granite. Chinese workers drilled holes and packed them with explosive black powder. The granite was so hard that sometimes the blasts merely spurted out through the drill holes without cracking the stone. Progress was measured in inches a day. Construction of the tunnel began in the summer of 1866 and took more than a year to complete.