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From Trail to Rail
A History of the Southern Pacific Company

Southern Pacific Bulletin, monthly installments, 1926-1928

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A BULLETIN feature which will undoubtedly be of interest to all officers and employes of the Company will start in next month's issue with the first installment of a history dealing with the early beginnings of the present Southern Pacific Company. Starting with the first foolhardy plans of idle dreamers for the building of a railroad to the Pacific Coast, the history tells how the Big Four – Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins and Crocker – became interested in Theo. D. Judah's proposition for thrusting a line of iron rails across the high Sierra; and how the courage, sound judgment and foresight of these Sacramento merchants overcame almost impossible engineering and financial difficulties to give the Pacific Coast its first transcontinental railroad in May, 1869. Building of this line east from Sacramento to Promontory, Utah, was one of the West's greatest achievements. Labor was scarce because of the goldfield rush; capital hesitated to invest in such a hazardous project; and all equipment, rails and most of the supplies had to be shipped by sailing vessel around Cape Horn. In carving through the granite mountains and advancing the rails over the high, snow covered Sierra, the pioneer railroad builders had to depend on Chinese coolies working with one-horse dump carts, wheel barrows, pick, shovel and black powder instead of dynamite, steam shovels, huge scrapers, rail-laying machines and the other power devices common to present day construction. Many of these events are related in the history by veterans now retired on pension. The material was gathered by the Bureau of News.

• 1.
  • Chapter I. In the Beginning
  • Chapter II. First American Railroads
  • Chapter III Schemes to Span the Continent
• 2.
  • Chapter IV. Plans For Pacific Railroad Take Form—Theodore Judah
  • Chapter V. The Big Four
• 3.
  • (Continued)
• 4.
  • Chapter VI. Central Pacific Railroad of California Incorporated
  • Chapter VII. Pacific Railroad Bill
• 5.
  • Chapter VIII. Work Begins at Sacramento and Opposition Develops
  • Chapter IX. Friends Warn Associates—Huntington Qualifies as Financial Wizard
  • Chapter X. The Job They Had Undertaken
  • Chapter XI. Breaking Ground at Sacramento—Small Contracts Prove Unsatisfactory and Builders Adopt Policy Which Enabled Them to Complete Task Seven Years Ahead of Time
• 6.
  • (Continued)
  • Chapter XII. Financial Difficulties. Judah Sells Out and Shortly After Dies
  • Chapter XIII. First Equipment Placed on Rails. Central Pacific Begins Operation as a Railroad. First Revenue
• 7.
  • (Continued);
  • Chapter XIV. Railroads First in the California Fields
  • Chapter XV. How Central Pacific Builders Lost a Mild Winter and San Francisco Missed a Lot of Valuable Business. First Chinese Employed
• 8.
  • (Continued)
  • Chapter XVI. Working Summit Tunnel from Four Faces. Hauling Hoisting Engine Over Trails
• 9.
  • Chapter XVII. How Work Was Carried on Beyond Truckee During Tunnel Construction—Locomotives, Material for 40 Miles of Track Dragged Over Trails—Battling With the Snow
  • Chapter XVIII. Story Of The Snow-sheds
  • Chapter XIX. Unequalled Construction Program Begins. Crocker's Resolution To Build a Mile of Track a Day. Contract and Finance Company Organized. Builders Offer Interest to Any Willing Share Responsibilities
• 10.
  • Chapter XX. Failure to Enlist Outside Help Does Not Stop Work. Conquest of the Desert
  • Chapter XXI. Prohibition Regulations Enforced With Iron Hand on Central Pacific. Newspaper Correspondent Describes Scene at End of Track
  • Chapter XXII. Grades Parallel Each Other for 200 Miles—Point of Meeting Agreed On—Ten Miles of Track in One Day—Driving Last Spike
• 11.
  • (Continued)
• 12.
  • Chapter XXIII. Early Days as a Through Railroad—Revenues for the First Year—No Through Equipment—Some Early Trips
• 13.
  • Chapter XXIV. Palace Sleeping Cars—Description of a Trip in One—Early Timetable and Freight and Passenger Tariffs
  • Chapter XXV. Associates Deeply in Debt When Lines Meet—Road Heavily Mortgaged and Stock Valuable Only for Control—Suez Canal Competition
• 14.
  • Chapter XXVI. Railroads of the West in 1869; Marysville a Center of Activity; The California Pacific
• 15.
  • (Continued)
  • Chapter XXVII. Early San Francisco Bay Ferry Boats and Sacramento River Steamers
• 16.
  • (Continued)
• 17.
  • Chapter XXIX. Central Pacific Reaches San Francisco Bay; Later Developments at Oakland and Alameda
• 18.
  • (Continued)
• 19.
  • Chapter XXVIII. First Railroads in the San Francisco Bay District
• 20.
  • Chapter XXX. Birth of Southern Pacific Railroad Company; Building of Line In San Joaquin Valley
• 21.
  • Chapter XXXI. Los Angeles and San Francisco Connected by Railroad ...

Note: The linked twently-one monthly installments consist of pages in a three column magazine format, shown highly enlarged because they become illegible when reduced to screen size.

Courtesy G.J. "Chris" Graves.

[The following OCR text is included to allow indexing.]
SOUTHERN PACIFIC BULLETIN
History of the Building of the Company I s Lines
Will Start in the November Bulletin
... This advance announcement is made particularly so that those interested in making a file of the Bulletins containing the historical articles will not miss saving the first installment in the November issue.
train brought many compliments from the old timers. You sure want to give 'Sbep' some 'commends for the way be's handling this old equipment, Kid P. C. Vallejo, veteran brakeman, told Superintendent G. E. Gaylord.
Conductor George Day, who heads the seniority list on San Joaquin Division, got a big hand when he went through the train lighting the little oil lamps just before the long Newhall tunnel was reached. It has been about thirty years since lamp lighting was one of his regular chores. It took 81/2 minutes to go through the tunnel on the initial trip fifty years ago, but on the trip the other day the little train was in the semi-darkness only 31/2 minutes. Shep had Fireman Steve Fayle cut down going through the tunnel so there was no smoke in the coaches. The heavy work was left to the pusher engine with Engineer Grimstead and Fireman De Jarnett.
Just beyond the long tunnel, the pusher engine was cut off and No. 38
railroad between San Francisco and Los Angeles, said Mr. Crocker, was not the beginning nor the end of the activity of the four men, Huntington, Stanford, Hopkins and Crocker, who built it. First, they built from Sacramento to Promontory Point, and,
This line of

after the line was built from San Francisco to Los Angeles, they extended it to New Orleans and then b. built from San Francisco north to meet their line from Portland. r Cryer of Los Angeles paid to the two, queen cities of the West-San Francisco and Los Angeles. No story is more interesting nor more intricate, he said. The story of building the first railroad will be read and re-read long after we are gone. The men who built it are entitled to our highest respect and esteem. They were men motivated by the spirit of the West. Mayor Rolph of San Francisco paid a glowing tribute to the pioneer railroad builders, whom he named individually, C. P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford and D. D. Colton, and said that the gathering at Lang was an im Page Five log conductor on the first train into .4 Angeles after the celebration in 7 16, was one of those making the 1) on the special in 1926. Jack left lifornia in 1886 and went to rail(ling for the Pennsylvania, and is W a pensioner of that company. r lives in Indianapolis and made the 11) west especially for the celebra IL I'his celebration has been the bigt event in Jack's life, Natt Furit said on the way up to Lang. rinan is himself an old timer and s one of the first erators of the iiipany at Comrcial Street stait* Jack was his est while in Los iigeles. Jack has hardly it able to sleep cat because of e excitement, tt said. I went his room about 00 this morning il he was wide - ake. I told him %%,- a s late and *11ybe we had ssed the train. Q Was out of bed it jiffy, but, on cond thought, ld, 'Oh, the train ouldn't leave Ithout the conctor.' He saw to 4 that we were at W, station well beInre the leaving Jovie at 9 o'clock. Johnny Bassett, ho was a brake fall on the special Itaiii that went out .)( Los Angeles to he celebration fty years before, rtit up and down c aisle showing foople the little les he used when ighing mail on the train in the rly days. J. T. Whedon, who was one of the roe regular conductors running beand Los Angeles after opened, was another old special. The other two iductors at that time were Jerry tig and Johnny Webber. W. N. Monroe entertained a group listeners. He was superintendent construction on the original line nd laid the track from Los Angeles tJiang through the Newhall tunnel. I was in charge of the track-laying 4ww at Lang, he said, when the utick-layers reached us from the On the dayof the celebration, ._*e had a track-laying race of 1500 ket, while the excursionists from Los - Aligreles and San Francisco looked AM Mr. Monroe was too modest to iay which crew won; probably it was j dead heat. Mrs. Hattie Stamps, of Hollywood, *ho is from a family of railroad terans, went through the train towing a picture of Jack Riley and -tober, 19Z6 .4 SOUTHERN PACIFIC BULLETIN several other early-day railroaders taken fifty years ago. She also had a copy of the original invitation extended Geo. R. Furman by E. E. Hewitt, then superintendent for the Company, to attend the Lang celebration. J. H. Maag displayed an interesting old timetable published the day after the line was opened in 1876. Engineer F. Shepardson, senior engineman on the San Joaquin Division, was on the head end in charge of old No. 38, and the way he handled the rolled the special along into Lang, where it was greeted by the several hundred visitors already on the scene. Following the spike-driving ceremony, President A. S. Bent of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, acted as master of ceremonies and called on several speakers, whose voices carried to the big crowd through a radio loud speaker. In introducing the speakers, Mr' Bent said that, if we are to fulfill the vision of the pioneers, we must all work shoulder to shoulder. Mr. Crocker was then introduced, and said that he was glad, indeed, to be present at the gathering, and that the occasion filled him with the deepest emotion, because. of the fact that it was his father who, fifty years ago, had driven the spike which had linked the rails from the two main cities of California. This line of railroad between San Francisco and Los Angeles, said Mr. Crocker, was not the beginning nor the end of the activity of the four men, Huntington, Stanford, Hopkins and Crocker, who built it. First, they built from Sacramento to Promontory Point, and, after the line was built from San Francisco to Los Angeles, they extended it to New Orleans and then built from San Francisco north to meet their line from Portland. You would have thought that these brave men would have felt they had done enough, after building to the East and then to Los Angeles, said Mr. Crocker. But, no! Their steady purpose held to keep on and on, building up this western country and tying it to the East with links of steel. Mayor Cryer of Los Angeles paid tribute to the two queen cities of the West-San Francisco and Los Angeles. No story is more interesting nor more intricate, he said. The story of building the first railroad will be read and re-read long after we are gone. The men who built it are entitled to our highest respect and esteem. They were men motivated by the spirit of the West. Mayor Rolph of San Francisco paid a glowing tribute to the pioneer railroad builders, whom he named individually, C. P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford and D . D. Colton, and said that the gathering at Lang was an im History of the Building of the Company's Lines Will Start in the November Bulletin A BULLETIN feature which will undoubtedly be of interest to all officers and employes of the Company will start in next month's issue with the first installment of a history dealing with the early beginnings of the present Southern Pacific Company. Starting with the first foolhardy plans of idle dreamers for the building of a railroad to the Pacific Coast, the history tells how the Big Four -Stan, ford, Huntington, Hopkins and Crocker-became interested in Theo. D * Judah's proposition for thrusting a line of iron rails across the high Sierra; and bow the courage, sound judgment and foresight of these Sacramento merchants overcame almost impossible engineering and financial difficulties to give the Pacific Coast its first transcontinental railroad in May, 1869. Building of this line east from Sacramento to Promontory, Utah, was one of the West's greatest achievements. Labor was scarce because of the goldfield rush; capital hesitated to invest in such a hazardous project; and all equipment, rails and most of the supplies had to be shipped by sailing vessel around Cape-Horn. In carving through the granite mountains and advancing the rails over the high, snow covered Sierra, the pioneer railroad builders had to depend on Chinese coolies working with one-horse dump carts, wheel barrows, pick, shovel and black powder instead of dynamite, steam shovels, huge scrapers, rail-laying machines and the other power devices common to present day construction. Many of these events are related in the history by veterans now retired on pension. The material was gathered by the Bureau of News. This advance announcement is made particularly so that those interested in making a file of the Bulletins containing the historical articles will not miss saving the first installment in the November issue. train brought many compliments from the old timers. You sure want to give 'Shep' some 'commends for the way he's handling this old equipment, Kid P. C. Vallejo, veteran brakeman, told Superintendent G. E. Gaylord. Conductor George Day, who heads the seniority list on San Joaquin Division, got a big hand when he went through the train lighting the little oil lamps just before the long Newhall tunnel was reached. It has been about thirty years since lamp lighting was -one of his regular chores. It took 81/2 minutes to go through the tunnel on the initial trip fifty years ago, but on the trip the other day the little train was in the semi-darkness only 31/2 minutes. Shep had Fireman Steve Fayle cut down going through the tunnel so there was no smoke in the coaches. The heavy work was left to the pusher engine with Engineer Grimstead and Fireman De Jarnett. Just beyond the long tunnel, the pusher engine was cut off and No. 38 Page Five _~s PV.TIIEgN PACUIC n addition 'to an 1 res Y -un in f 'r the big, cling o trie Kails** celebration he was rnet at the , I Ces -ji'Am of - entertainrn6jjt,',.th(~ y eIVer&I_zVaer4nswh6 ~Ar6r ed with him b.ck,in the X~S when the'first line was, openedinto that -,,, I to iijht--~Johnriy P. Bassett~ conductor- John Sullivan, engineer- P C 'Kid , `g-~Electric'baiid played -_ ~_`ll I f~ Ifte -s an ~,~xce, 0 con- cert. ollowing pee ack--Kiley, conductoi;J.,H. Maag, brernan on,constructicin; Johnny Webber, .1itzger-ald.-engineer still inactive service. .'Chas~ Cooke, director of the.c.elebration for f ch-mak t e rear lo &plated sf thc~ Corrilmer d' jh ?:rhe _,,,`~resented'to~~ r.'.Cro&e~ 4~1 elief ifi-th6 future of Califorhia'and .._.'.Yehir,',-was - donated Coast 'And the Writ of 11 k j -tAnj the Pacifi6 e . n9wn jeweler-bf ~o~ 191, Comp n' ~d' btor~ R V_-D or as guided the ince~'h lines were built., --,He er pioneer Ut t t pan'y's -belief Bi h 'd ~~inted , ha the Con' s op an e utu-;~,--'h`-, in th f -t6-~ of t e ' W derhonArated I- b' y '-the-*,' .'~Ploukhed back ~ into- 'the prop their, jm.piovern6nt ..~ ~jkd ~~,bett Ah -, C e-,earnings; qf -1- ~ c,~ -.O.Tpan modest retu' t6th -`t .71. e - 5, oc this spirit, -iiaid Mr.~ '~ ,Southeiln_,~,-_Pacifie _~~-n-i'anagem Ica i N~ing ~Qu at - 18 greater- than'- - I a any, -'the 11ries -jwere -,,,We are going ahead,--havtfig'_~ faith in you -44,d with -The , os nge 9s ~merce:handled arrangement*~ celebration. Chas.. 'Cooke'-as dir. _t ~.-close' cooperation b Com any and the e p :c-ific organization-.joe Romero;~-pion ngeles,-'.-did himself ~.qualit~-d the bakbee _J;lenty for~-e,~6` yb6d - , -~ lz~ -,-- 7, zky.qDear-,;.ot,,xhe clistricti- which 4,1 nks' lia cial'traii onductoi nry1C, I eran pa~ n Divisi( ~cial tol I n additi, ned, 'amo itors, vetera were: obert 1~ and g( Chain' d and N) o super n engin( ductor; 149'; - C, n ~€ed io C. Mach derick - s of JolW. Fahi as. Croli. Watsorl dire Neeiation 1 c AIN. O ortant his' ---,tr I Cott( Irb gibi 100,0( ~k-a6 I t7~~ e sur os dblis nernIly d bit of it nw** re con for asi, hat 0irs, tion I.V11 Ili* boing sbwk hat It,. ly log* lie shareg t lillils ir a114 1111111111y r %ifft, liff. exceii n tills t cte oil (d oil ifm Coln is not t evell expert in Ity d. d hy it ctiollb cl.aifli 010 ent, .0 ,6~77, SOUTHE N PAL r I r I C BULLETIN CHAPTER 1. In the. Beginning. to pioneer That is the omparly of oday. This system is the main unit of a organization whose operations extend from the Pacific to the Atlantic; from Portland, Oregon' to ew York; an organization which operates 16,262 miles of rail and about 8,825 miles of water lines; is owned n 57,300 stockholders and 103,500 men and women. lines with a mileage of mprise all the lines of ,this organization west of Ogden, Utah; ~Tucumcari, N. M., and El Paso, ,.Texas; and south of Portland, Ore~-Xon. They operate in and serve the states of Oregon, California, Nevada, tah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. The story of the early beginnings f this system is the story of the st; the tale of a glorious battle by a little group of brave men unknown odds; the record of victory earned through wise planing and untiring willingness to carry n. In this victory the entire West ared, because the result, gained 60 ago under conditions which toregarded by most men was the building of a eat gency for the development of empire it opened to the world. The system as it stands today was utlined in its essentials by the buildrs of the first unit. In the contruction of that unit-the western nd of the first transcontinental rail ad-the builders undertook a work hich was pronounced impossible by e majority of those best equipped y wealth or training to aid in its acomplishment.' These pioneer builders took to the A a lifetime of training in the fundamentals of business, integrity which rved as the basis for large credit hen material collateral was exhaust a courage which rendered them ious to opposition and ridicule NOTE I-D. 0. Mills testified: The difficul very great and rendered their credit r. it was a, constant struggle and of the community as well as my own a against their being able to carry out the terprise. Fac. R. R. Com. p, 3490, pvtmber, rvA .4 and blind to what many would have recognized as failure. The country opened up by their efforts, rich as it is today, was then a wilderness-unpeopled and remotewith its future promise visible only to the eye of hope. Not only was the West a little known land, but everything that was known of the country through which a railroad line must traverse to reach the West was of a nature to discourage such a venture. This mid-country was practically uninhabited; much of it was known to be desert land. Such humans as were encountered in this unexplored stretch were Indians- wild Indians as they were classified in those days-who had already manifested cruel resentment of any intrusion by the white population. It was known also that the line of The Cover Picture THIS month we have a picture for the cover that was taken back in the days when the present lines of the Southern Pacific were in the making. The picture shows work under way in filling the Secret Town trestle where a large force of Chinese laborers were kept busy during the sum, mer of 1877 making the fill across the can, yon to replace the hastily constructed trestle. The trestle was 1100 feet long and 90 feet high and was constructed over the divide between the American River and Bear River when the original lines of the Central Pacific were being extended over this section of the Sierra Nevada Moun, tains during the spring of 1865. The picture shows in a striking manner the meager construction implements with which the builders of pioneer railroad un, dertook the herculean task of grading a roadbed and laying iron rails across the granite-walled, snow-peaked Sierra. Wheel, barrows, one,horse dump carts, picks, shovels and giant powder were the tools of the Chinese laborers. Joseph M. Graham, then resident engi, neer at Colfax, was in direct charge of work in making the fill, under direction of Chief Engineer Samuel S. Montague. Mr. Gra, ham is now a resident of Berkeley, Cal. The Octure is a copy from an original A. A. Hart stereoscopic view and was borrowed from the collection of Chas. B. Turrill of San Francisco. any transcontinental railroad must cross two chains of mountains popularly regarded as impassable barriers. Mountain roads so steep that wagons had to be lowered down them by ropes were still fresh in the memory of the emigrants who had come west over the plains by the covered wagon route. Mountain construction is still an undertaking of great difficulty. In those days, to carry any road through rocky territory was literally a matter of hand-carving. Moreover, the knowledge of traction was still limited. Only a few years had passed since It was generally believed, even by engineers, that to attempt to drive a locomotive up hill was a defiance of the laws of gravity which must end only in disaster! With the entire West agreed on the need for transportation facilities which would bring within more convenient reach the East-which was home then to all Westerners of American birth-few could be found willing to risk fortune and reputation on anything so improbable of accomplishment as the construction of a transcontinental railroad. California had only recently become part of the United States. The discovery of gold had attracted the attention of the nation to the isolation as well as to the wealth of this western world, so that in West and East sentiment favored the construction of a transcontinental railroad as something necessary to bind the continent together. It was also recognized that, while ¥ transcontinental railroad would cost ¥ great deal of money, it would also mean a big saving to the government. As travel over the plains increased, the demand for government protection from the Indians became more insistent. Forts were established at in NOTE 2-Eight months after Win. Norris, a young locomotive builder of Philadelphia who built the locomotive Washington in 1836, had demonstrated that a locomotive could not only climb an ascending grade by its own power but could also haul a train up, A. G. Steere of the Erie Railway in a Ion comrnu nication to the Railroad Journal ofMay 11, 1837, proved by elaborate algebraic formula that the Washington did not climb the hill because it could not and that no other locomo tive ever could climb an ascending gr1de by its own power. Mr. Steere was very nice about his exposure of Mr. Norris' alleged deeds done in open violation of the laws of gravita lo- tion. When Railroads Were New, p. 129. Page Three tervals as frequent as possible and ~hplzovernment was put to an everincreasing expense for manning and indintaiiiing these.isolated outposts. Tlie., annual expenditurei,in time.;of peace, under ordinary circumstances for government transportation to the Patific,coast was estimated in 1862 at'nearly seven and.one-half million dollars. The Quartermaster-Gene~ral reported, the cost to the government of transporting military stores w-es't--ward across the plains for the year ending. une 30, 1865, as $6,388,856.' I A~-report to the United States Senate.in 1869 -showed that the Indian w,4is for 37 -years prior to. that, date cost.,the United States twenty thou7 sand lives and $750,000,000, or about $20,000,000 annually. During the years 1864 and 1865 the Quartermaster's Department of the army alone spent $28,574,228 for military supplies against.the. Indians.' In the first seven years after completion of the railroad the government saved in transportation charges alone nearly $48,000,000.5 The suggestion, however, that the government should undertake the construction of a, railroad as a national enterprise met with determined opposition in Congress. This opposition was a reflection of public opinion based on unsatisfactory experience ,with government in business up to that time. Also the United States then was far from being a financial power among the nations and was not in a position to assume any undertaking the cost of which was so impossible of calculation as was railroad construction sixtyyears ago. CHAPTER II. First American Railroads. Although the practicability of railroads had been demonstrated in some quarters before the project of a transcontinental road had made much headway, general acceptance of the idea proceeded slowly. Many. railroad projects had been started'in the East. Most of them had failed while still 4n,infancy. Investment in railroad stocks before'. the days of transcontinental.railroads was regarded as a gamble. New inventions were not accepted as readily then as they are now. An example is the steam engine in its application to railroads. For twentyseven years before the charter for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was drafted, the Philadelphia Water Works had been operated by a wooden boiler, supplying-steam at two and a half pounds pressure, to an engine built chiefly of wood,with a large copper cylinder. I Here was a crude but long continued and successful demonstration of the dependability of.steam, yet the directors of the Baltimore & Ohio, after their road had been partly built, were . still in doubt as to the most suitable motive power. They experimented with horses, sails, and a horsedriven motor--the horse being carried on one of the cars on a sort of tread NOTE 3- Congressional Globe, April 1862. NOTE 4-40th Congress 3rd. session, Sen. Com. 290. TZ 5-Pac, Ry. Com. F. 2596. Page Fou _.S0UT1-1EP_N PACIFIC ULLFTIN Chinese laborers working with dump carts on a heavy fill during construcfion of the Company's line over the Sierra Nevada mountains. The picture was taken during 18by before the line was through to Colfax in September that year. enlightenment in a study of the eiidr American railroad field, which cotne ': prised nine miles of gravity road it Mauch Chunk and three mileq of horse road at the granite quarries Quincy. A committee of engineo was then sent to England to stutly Stephenson's Manchester & Liverp-1 Railway. This committee made a port April 5, 1828, and constructiow began August 11 of that year. CHAPTER III. Schemes To Span The C Less than one hundred mil road had been built in States when th an Ann Arbor, published on F torial advocati railroad from the Great Lak s Pacific Ocean. This was the first voice rais demand for a transcontine I ntal _11 ,It was the opening note in a campai which in 1862 resulted in the passa of the Pacific Railroad Act. In 1836, John , Plumbe a 14 - miner who had ' gained some experience as superintendent of -a ra road between Richmond and Pete burg, called a meeting at his home,~~ Dubuque,, Iowa ' to discuss private, the building of a railroad to the cific Ocean. As a result of t ing there was held, on Ma the first public convention the Pacific R sponse to re convention, ~funds for the survey of from Milwaukee to Dubu Two years later Plumbi_~uaeled_ gress for another appropriation to tend the survey farther West, but'~ was, too far ahead of his time, Congress refused to act. Plumb receive public recognitionj h Nov mill-before Peter Cooper devised a steam locomotive which would negotiate sharp curves. The charter of the first railroad in merica was drafted less than one hundred years ago'. This was fiftysix years after Watt had perfected the steam engine, and forty years after the Legislature of Pennsylvania had ignored the request of Oliver Adams for a patent on a steam wagon, with the statement that his plan was the hallucination of a disordered mind. The first railroad in the United States was completed at Quincy, Mass., in 1826. It was used to carry granite to tide-water, and was operated entirely by horses. The Baltimore & Ohio was the first passenger . railroad in the United States. Construction was started in 1829. The plan of building this road was received with favor and the first issue of stock was subscribed three times over by Baltimore people during the twelve days it was on sale. The projectors, however, who had made their estimates without any real knowledge of construction costs, aimed far below the necessary mark, and there was much financial maneuvering before the railroad was completed. The Baltimore peole, had courage This pioneer road, which,cosi $31,000,000 before the rails reached the Ohio River, was begun when the entire wealth of the City of Baltimore was less than $25,000,000. The first act of the directors was to send out a committee to get some ,definite idea as to what a railroad really was. The committee found little NOTE 6~This charter drawn by J. V. L. McMahon, 27-year-old lawyer. the first eVer drawn in America, was so skilfully framed that it has served as a model for evel ~imilar document drawn since then. , When ailroads Were New, p. 38. e CtOrig regon R abodiedidea that tates w 'Itich tradf Whitne life and pntinent; some con ,gineers lid in 1~ ttempts ,assed, 1 oject. d devol small d sl a! h A stu( ait an a R in annoi fily life kind. In thi, he spew .1845 wit 0emen') Iralles of Missouri Whitn .29th an( build to rpose e We: ay be thE was ia, wa, tc *as bul peric sence et ti ount _Uon, it small As f; ttracti isons n, a re 1: ce shel alifor es f, bot su imat( k. thei imal ~'Tw s h Vemb Original Project-or of the Great gon Railroad, and his plan was odied in the first of the National ific Railroad Acts, passed in 1862. hen came Asa Whitney, a New merchant, who had returned the Orient in 1840 filled with the that a railroad across the United tes would give to America the trade of the Orient. hitney devoted ten years of his and all his f ortune to his transtinental railroad project. He made e converts, but failed to convince ineers that his plan was practical, in 1850, after three unsuccessful rnpts by Whitney to get bills ed, Congress finally killed his ect. Whitney gave up the fight, devoted his latter days to running all dairy in Washington, D. C. r. Hartwell Carver of Rochester, .1 son of Jonathan Carver, the ous traveler, was in the field ost as early as the Ann Arbor edi with a plan for a Pacific Railroad. F. Degrand also had a plan. study of these plans will show railroad engineering was practi y an unknown quantity to their ors. hitney's ideas may be gathered oin a pamphlet entitled, A Project r a Railroad to the Pacific, pub ied in New York in 1849, in which announces his intention to devote life to the work which I believe mises so much good to all man (1.1y In this pamphlet Whitney tells how spent the spring and summer of 5 with a company of young gennien exploring and examining 800 Iles of route and 1500 miles of the Issouri River and other streams. No Faith in West Whitney memorialized the 28th, rith and 30tb Congress for a charter build a railroad from Lake Michin to the Pacific Ocean. Whitney's 'pose was not so much to develop West as to provide a new highy between the Oriental markets d the eastern states and Europe. e was not enthusiastic about Cali_rnia, to which his principal objecn was that the mountains were so se to the Pacific Ocean that there s but small space left, and, owing periodical droughts in that climate, sence of means to irrigate, and the et that there was but a small ount of land suitable to cultiva n, it was capable of sustaining but Amall population. As far north as San Francisco, he lared, the land was poor. He ad itted that the discovery of gold was eting thousands. He said: Gold ns both the minds and morals of n, and leads a man to devote even ore labor to dig from the earth six tice of gold than would produce a ' kishel of wheat. The population of Illifornia must depend -on other coun Ties for food, and certainly we can t supply their wants, because the Imate through which we must pass them would injure and destroy all imal and vegetable produce. Two years will wind up the scene, s his summary dismissal of Cali vember, 1926 OUTHEP-N PACIFIC BULLETIM - fornia's mining activity, and from then on California will have to import labor from Europe to raise enough to eat, will have nothing to sell, and nothing with which to buy. Whitney, who planned to build the Pacific Railroad as a personal venture, asked Congress for a sixty-mile wide strip of land from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean, for which he agreed to pay at the rate of ten cents an acre. John Plumbe publicly resented Whitney's picture of California and, in the name of the settlers and miners of the city and county of Sacramento under date of February, 1851, submitted to Congress a memorial against Whitney's entire scheme. Whitney, in his memorial, suggested the Columbia River as the proper terminus of a trancontinental railroad, because of the impossibility of crossing the Sierra farther south. Plumbe took exception to this with the declaration that the undersigned will take the liberty of stating, with the utmost deference to the high authority to the contrary, that he himself completed the reconnaissance of a route from the Missouri River to San Francisco, which demonstrates beyond all doubt that the Sierra Nevada can be crossed by a gradient not exceeding 40 ft. per mile, whilst with a comparatively short tunnel a dead level might be preserved. This would indicate that Plumbe's knowledge of the Sierra was as inadequate as Whitney's knowledge of California. Public exchanges of argument and opinion were intensely personal in those days. To Whitney's California criticisms Plumbe had this to say: As to the disparaging remarks relative to the resources and general character of California, it is sufficient here to say that this is but a reflection on the writer's own ignorance. But it appears that the nearest view that this gentleman himself enjoyed of California was from Council Bluffs on the east and Canton on the west, and -this fact satisfactorily accounts for his unfortunate misapprehension of the real attributes of our noble state and her golden Sierra. Railroad King He concludes with the statement that Mr. Whitney's bill would give California not a railroad but a railroad king. Back of this interchange was probably some personal feeling, because in 1847 Plumbe had written to Whitney suggesting that a convention be called to consider all the projects for a Pacific railroad, and to work out one practical plan. Whitney's confidence in his own plan was as supreme as his plan was impractical. He replied to Plumbe: You speak of my project and others which you say are before Congress, but I have never even troubled myself to examine them, believing them all to have been founded upon mine, and have given them no further thought than that they would find their proper level. I have carefully read over your prospectus, and must say I am so dumb I cannot even make a plan of it at all. My course of duty is onward and alone. I fear no opposition-I fear no comparison. Plumbe was an optimist. In discussing his alleged practical route over the Sierra he said he had been really disappointed in finding that, instead -of the expected difficulties, Nature had not only provided an easy pass, but had studded it with mountains so rich in mineral that the hitherto dreaded barrier was in reality a storehouse from which the grading of the road would extract enough treasure to pay for the work. Plumbe's ideas of the benefits that would result from the construction of the transcontinental railroad, while given serious consideration in those 04C With the commf of the-iron horse the stage coaches, which have been immortalized in Western romance, ally o P were gradu rc _d into the discard as a means of transportation. Tnis picture was taken at Hangtown (now Placerville) during the late 'bo's. The stage coaches are taking passengers from the terminal of California*s first railroad, the Sacramento Valley Railroad now a part of Southern Pacific, on the last lap of the trip over the mountains to Virginia City. Page Five days, would offer poor inducement'to the investors of 1925. .. Our present attempts to Christianize the heathen are but a drop in the ocean, declared Plumbe, compared With the effects which would follow the construction of the road. He declared that the Pacific Railroad Would give the East tea of better quality, by getting it more quickly to the con~ sumer, that it would facilitate the protection of the whites from fhe Indians, and would make it possible to play checkers by telegraph. After Whitney came Josiah Perham, of Boston, who was endowed with the belief that li~ had a divine mission to aid in building the Pacific railroad. Perham had failed in business and was about to start for California during the gold excitement of 1849 when his attention was directed to a panorama of Niagara Falls-, the St. Lawrence and the Saguenay. Perham arranged to have the panorama, :the Seven-Mile Mirror as he called it, get up in Boston. He then arranged cheap excursions from the country towns- roundabout to see the panorama. People in the country jumped at this chance for a visit.to the city at small cost and Perham's scheme was a big success both for him and the railroads. This was the beginning of the cheap excursion business. The railroads appreciated its value and did everything they could to help. Perham extended his activities throughout New England and Canada and in 1850 was credited with bringing more than 200,000 excursionists into Boston. It was the fortune made in this business which he devoted to spreading the gospel of the Pacific railroad. People's Pacific Road Perham's plan, which was perfected ,in 1853, was. to collect a million subscriptions of one hundred dollars each from he general.public. The Peo-ple's- Pacific Railroad was incorporated in ~Main%-March 20, 1860., Con'o6ss took -its time about actingi and the.- People's Pacific -,Ralflroad Bill, fi ly passed, did not go through until after the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific had been launched. I The bill was signed -by President Lincoln July 2, 1864. This road became the forerunner I of the Northern, ,Pacific, b t Perham died, a poor:man, u before' construction began.,~' :--Dr..Hartwell Carver, who in 1847 mAde~public proclamation that he was,,, the ~ original-, projector of -the transcontinental Irlailioad, -asked Congress at that time for a charter to build a 'railroad-, from some, point on Lake Michigan to the banks of the Columbia River, with a branch, to the Bay of San Francisco. He asked that the government donateenough land for the widthof the road, with the free use of stone, timbet, iron ore and coal, and sell the builders 8,000,000 acres of public land located anywhere. the buyer - might select, within thirty miles of the railroad. The price of this land was to be $1.25 an acre and the govenment was to accept in payment for it stock 'Of the company at par. Page Six SOUTHEP-N PACIFIC BULLETIN LELAND STANFORD This picture of the first president of the Central Pacific Railroad, parent organization of the Southern Pacific Company,was taken in 1873. I He also asked for the company the exclusive privilege of maintaining telegraph service between the East and the Pacific Coast. He planned to build a track of 8 or 10 feet gauge, and undertook to complete the work in fifteen years. As an alternative proposition, he agreed to build the, road for twenty miles of land on each side of the track. Dr. Carver, like the other authors of plans for a transcontinental railroad, was an engineer in theory only. In his memorial to Congress he took that body into his confldence as to some of the details oi:his enterprise. . To secure comfort for the traveler, he~plarmed to make the cars double the width of his .8- or 10-foot track, and to lay,the rails on thin~felt, for the purpose of taking up the vibration. This padding, the. doctor informed Congress, would make possiMe- 9. ,speed of fifty or sixty miles an 'hour,: and the cars will run still and -`quiet. , The: cars. with which he purposed to equip this toad were to be floating palaces, 16 feet wide and 100 feet long, with.stiterooms and -berth for sleeping, spleridid and welfturnished saloons, dining halls and kitchens for cooking, ac6mmodating in each car 200 passengers or more, and almost as., quiet repose as they would enjoy at home in their own parlors. Dr. Carver also had a plan for over-. coming grades. He was going to have holes drilled in the rails tdreceive the cogs of wheels, which can be so arranged as to . let down when it becomes necessary to ascend a grade over 100 feet to the mile- By this plan, the doctor said, trains could be induced to climb over the highest mountains. He concluded his memorial-tlo C gress with, the statement that the terurise would bring about. a kind earthly millennium, and bethe meof uniting. the whole world in 0 great church, a part of whose will he to praise I God and.b Oregon,, Railroad. - Dr. Carver had rather as to how he would rais sary money,in the event th ,given the charter. He is the New York Express of D~ceinlij~ 17, 1845, as saying that, if Gong granted his request, he would im diately go ~ to China, which to be waking un, and would e to inspire them, with a s activity and enterprise which induce them to take large amo stock. I I Earned Free Pass All that Dr. Carver got for out of his life-long work was pass over the Pacific railroad. was given, to him in 1869, after had made his dream a reality. P. P. F. Degrand proposed to bija Pacific railroad by the pig lever of national credit. His P posal was for a railroad from ', Louis to San Francisco. It wait plan to sell stock -sufficient to 11 $2,000,000. Raisinz this sum w(A give them the right to bo, rt $98,000,000 from the government 69o', to-be repaid $2,000,000 per after the completion of the road He also asked for a strip oi ten miles wide on the north the road, and the land for th the road, and for depots, right to take from the publi wood, gravel, stone- iron, etc. sary to construct ae road. pressed the belief that the road covu be finished under his plan n years. Degrand shared the popular lack faith in government ownership, no, evidenced by the concluding graph in his memorial, in w says, If the railroad to.,Sa cisco is un'dertaken-as a publ. we are warned by the fate of' tem of permanent fortificatio the great resurrection gun, before its completion. ' .Degrand's plan was not given ous consideration by Congress. were other, plans, such as-the G Wilkes' scheme, which struction of. the Pacific government, with - the. Treasury- as its bariker 'United States Sen ad a p an, ' not for-,a' a plinl old English have been accustomed our, on which the farmer,Xna tra horses or on, foot, without fea without tax, with -none to. run him or make_'him. jump-,.out o way. , (coitinued Next,Mo I nth) NOTE 7- Proceedings of th6.1rknd Railroad to San- Francisco':!~ at 'theii~~ meeting held at - the U.; S_ HoteL, in'f April 19i 1849,,inicludedl~,an sddress.'.,, Vpli of the United-Stites shd*ihg~that, oDegtand's plan is the, only e,on~ -,as y posed which will secure promptly:4-n a and by,a single act of legislation .'co-pswi of a ra Iroad to California in the ~sh&t allowed by its. physical obstaclts~!' Stanford Library ves sir thi be alte: zed th ing ds ii ,-~etizinl ashion 01) ai i e oJ t 9 an in The stes ~'&Ppetit _~,,Aertaki fit I a: d( at, 0( ta gether, .,,,tar fro prox to say h ge. ta ME p C s taui ny r pply ssar he n Fi rtlai ple sup ssa -oke per nts pear t is abor, of their entire co and s men trans ce as a 1905, yard n 1906 When ;eville, Ir am 1 09 1 yard - te fol yard - aster, rans 1912. inted to all fol Mi - oast, 11 iS eri I i - ger,~~ AR 1,; dul c iln - teo, new oras ain, er allth v Oil go, the n I ich A ve at rn. t(; IF res 0 f To. I J I ~r - I n . to t(I r ~d t n' P ( a a tl SOUTHEPIN PACIFIC BULLETIN CHAPTER IV. Plans For Pacific Railroad Take Form-Theodore Judah. N addition to investigating these private plans, and perhaps to aid it in considering them, Congress in 1853 directed Secretary of War Jefferson Davis to ascertain the most practical and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Davis sent out five columns of army engineers, whose report fills twelve large volumes with narrative, pictures and maps. The routes they surveyed have since been approximated by the lines of the Northern Pacific, Santa Fe, Southern Pacific and Union Pacific from Council Bluffs to the mountains. The army reports indicated that the southern routes could be constructed ill less time and for less money than the northern routes, which, oil account pf grades an(] snow, were regarded as impracticable. But for the Civil War, it is not unlikely that the first railroad to the Pacific Coast would have been through the southern states. The war, while adding immeasurably to the difficulty of financing the project, influenced the selection of the northern route and was a large factor in hastening the passage in 1862 of a Pacific Railroad Bill, which included in the Goverrancrit aid, liberal grants of public lands. It was Theodore Dehone Judah, a young engineer who came to California in 1854 as chief engineer for the Sacramento Valley Railroad, which had been organized to build a road from Sacramento to Folsom, whose concentrated enthusiasm gave definite direction to the steps which led to breaking ground for the Centra! Pacific Railroad at Sacramento in 1863. Judah was born in 1826 at Bridgeport, Conn., and was educated at the Renssaeler Polytechnic Institute at Troy, New York. Judah's early ambition had been to enter the United States navy, but he was unable to secure an appointment to Annapolis. He turned his energies to civil engineering and with notable success. He was resident engineer of the Connecticut River Railroad; surveyed and built the railroad from Niagara Falls December, r926 to Lewiston, and served as engineer on the Erie Canal and on the Rochester and Niagara Falls Railroad. Armed with this-in those daysunusual railroad experience, Judah came West in 1854 to the Sacramento Valley Railroad, the construction of part of which he supervised. Goes to Congress In the fall of 1856 he went East to raise funds to extend the Sacramento Valley Railroad from Marysville to San Francisco. He attended three sessions of Congress, endeavoring to procure the passage of a bill making grants of land to aid in the construction of railroads in California. It was in this way that Judah gained the knowledge of legislative methods which led to his selection, in 1859, to represent in Washington the California Railroad Convention, in'an effort to get another bill through Congress, and which enabled him still later to render material help in securing the passage of the Pacific Railroad Bill. The railroad convention, which was held in San Francisco October 11, 1859, at Assembly Hall, Kearny and Post streets, was called by the California State Legislature to consider the refusal of Congress to take effective measures to secure construction of a railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The California Legislature had been active in its efforts to help secure rail transportation across the continent. In 1850 the Legislature passed a resolution urging on Congress the im Trail to Rail Is Story of Company's Beginning THE Trail to Rail article now running in the Bulletin is the only authentic and complete record ever published of the build, ing of the old Central Pacific line from Sac, ramento to Promontory Point, Utah, which line is now a part of Southern Pacific. Building the western link of the first transcontinental railroad was one of the greatest achievements of the West and will undoubtedly be followed with close inter, est by employes in all branches of the service. The present article will not go into the history of the Southern Pacific Company as an entire organization in any great detail. portance of authorizing the construction of a national railroad from the Pacific Ocean to the Missouri or Mississippi River. In 1852 the Legislature adopted a resolution instructing the California delegation in Washington to vote for a national railroad to the Pacific Coast. A Railroad Convention was held in San Francisco October 4 and 5, 1853, and in 1853, 1854, and 1857 the Legislature, by resolution, urged Congress to act. In 1854 the California Legislature appointed a committee of six to collect information regarding the proposed routes for the Pacific Railroad, and in 1855 the legislature urged the national government to establish military and post roads across the plains between the Atlantic states and Calif ornia. Judah was a tireless worker, and the report of his activities in Washington as the representative of the Convention is the report of a big job well done. His efforts were not crowned with success, however, until nearly two years later.' Judah went East by the Panama route, and had for his fellow passengers Congressman J. C. Burch, who recently had been elected one of California's delegation to the House of Representatives, and General J. H. Lane, United States senator from Oregon. Judah made good use of the long hours of travel, and by the time they reached Washington both Burch and Lane knew as much about the Pacific Railroad project as Judah could tell them, and were nearly as enthusiastic as the engineer himself. During the trip, the trio prepared a bill, which, when they reached New York, Judah had printed. He sent a copy with an explanatory circular to all the principal newspapers and to prominent individuals who were directly and indirectly interested in the transcontinental project. He interviewed influential men in Boston and New York, had a long talk with President Buchanan, and secured his approval of California's effort to secure railroad communication with the East. NOTE 9--Painplilet published by Judah, Sacramento, Nov. 1, 1860 (In State Library, Sacramento). Page Seven Finding the House occupied with the election of a speaker, he writes: I decided to make a tour through the West, and endeavor to awaken as much interest as possible in our efforts. Before the organization of Congress I accordingly visited New York, Albany, Syracuse, Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus, Chicago, and Cincinnati, being Absent about one month, and itrrived in Washington again January 14, 1860, since which time I have been constantly engaged in endeavoring to further the passage of the 'Pacific Railroad Bill'. Back in Washington, he undertook the education of Congress in the matter of the Pacific Railroad. He sent a copy of his bill to each member of both Houses, and to every prominent newspaper in the country. He interviewed the speaker of the House and acquainted him with California's plan. When the committee had been ap-f pointed, to which the Pacific Railroad legislation would be referred, Judah saw to it that every member had a full supply of Pacific Railroad literature and a copy of the bill Judah had prepared. Slavery Was Issue Unfortunately for his efforts, the question of the abolition of slavery had now become acute, and the national legislators had no time to discuss railroad bills. The measure of the California Convention was postponed until the following session of Congress. I am sustained, wrote Judah at this time, by the views of many in-telligent gentlemen of experience, in the opinion that, with proper exertion, there is little doubt of the passage of the bill at the short session. Judah had left no stone unturned to interest Washington in his project. Through Congressman Burch, Judah was given a room in the Capitol on the same floor with the halls of the House and the Senate. There he established a general headquarters for the Pacific Railroad. As he says: I procured all the maps, reports, surveys and papers of every kind to be found on the subject, and, it being so convenient to the halls, many of the senators and members were accustomed to drop in daily. You may be assured that no opportunity was lost to further our views and impress on them the importance in which the subject is held in California. Judah also reported that he had collected reliable information with regard to the operation of locomotive engines on heavy grades-highly important in view of the problem that had to be solved in crossing the Sierra Nevada Mountains-and establishing the fact that grades of as high as 350 feet per mile could be overcome and operated with safety. Judah returned to California satisfied that the Pacific Railroad bill could be passed and that the most important thing for him to do, and that without delay, was to find a pass for the road through the Sierra. He was convinced that such a pass existed and many -of those who had supported Page Eight . SOUTHERN PACIFIC BULLETIa THEODORE D. &DAH First chief engineer of the entral Pacific who visioned the railroad over the Sierra but did not live to see his dream come true. He was only 37 years old when he died in 1863 from Panama fever. the bill in Washington had accepted his faith as sufficient assurance. His inability to make a definite declaration, however, that a pass of specified grades had been found, had caused a number of congressmen to withhold their support. He had no money to pay for surveys. San Francisco men who had helped pay his expenses in Washington refused to contribute any more to a venture that seemed so hopeless of fulfillment * Judah undertook some explorations for wagon road routes for the Sacramento Railroad. At the same time, Daniel W. Strong, of Dutch Flat, was out in the mountains seeking a road over which some of the emigrant travel could be diverted so that it would pass through Dutch Flat. Strong discovered what he thought was a place where a railroad could go through the Sierra. He knew that Judah had been searching for a pass over the mountains farther north than the thirty-second parallel. He wrote to Judah, telling him of his discovery and inviting him to come up to Dutch Flat and take a look at what he believed was a gateway through the rocky range. Judah responded promptly, and, with Strong's aid, enough money was raised in Dutch Flat to pay the cost of an investigation by Judah. He returned to Dutch Flat in August, 1860, with the announcement that he had found a practical line for the railroad across the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the crest of a continuous divide from the Sacramento Valley to the summit. This line, he announced, was shorter and more direct than the one indicated by government engineers, and bad maximum grades of 100 feet to the mile. Judah immediately prepared articles of association for the California Central Railroad, and, on November 1, 1860, issued a circular detailing his discovery of the pass and invitinsubscriptions to a company which lic had organized for the purpose of constructing a road through the state upon this route, in anticipation of tlie passage of this bill; to procure the recognition of this as the line of tbe Pacific Railroad through California; to procure the appropriations appertaining to this end of the route , and to construct the road under this organization. Seeks Finances He pointed out that the California law required that, in organizing a railroad company, $1000 per mile must be subscribed and 10 per cent. paid in. He continued: The estimated length of the road to the state line is 115 miles, requiring a subscription of $115,000, on which 10 per cent or $11,500 is required to be paid in. It is proposed to make with this 10 per cent a thorough, practical railroad survey, establishing the grades, cuttings, an(I fillings, and to make the necessary maps, profiles, estimates, report,~, etc. He announced that he had in tll(. towns of Dutch Flat, Illinoistown, Grass Valley, and Nevada received a bona fide subscription of $46,500, leaving about $70,000 subscriptioii (requiring payment of $7,000) to 1w made up in the cities of San Fran cisco and Sacramento.' o He promised that his plan, to makc this the western end of the Pacific Railroad, would receive the support of the California delegation in Congres,,~ and that Congressional leaders other men of influence in Washington were in full sympathy with his airn~i. This pamphlet was sent to t1w newspapers of San Francisco and Sacramento and to men of means in both cities. Judah followed it Ul) with personal visits. In San Francisco he found no encouragement. Daniel Strong, who worked wid) Judah in this first effort to raiso money, testified in 1887 before tlie Pacific Railroad Commission that only two men bought stock in San Francisco, and that they were both resident!i of Grass Valley. Judah's dream failed to attract men who were getting 21/2 to 3Y2 per cent a month interest on their money in the regular course of business. Hi,,t project offered no profits at all until the road was built, and that woul(l take years. When the profits di,l come, there was no likelihood that they would be anything like the lle~_ turns to which western investors were accustomed. Furthermore, if the ven NOTE 10- I went to San Francisco and 11W people there laughed at the idea. There W~1,~ only two men in this city-and they belonge,1 t Grass Valley (Col. Raymond and Jud~-, alsh) stopping then at what was called t1i, Tehama House, who said that they wo I'l take 25 shares apiece. (Pac. Ry. Co. p. 2840. Testimony D. IV. Strong.) NOTE 11-Leland Stanford before Pac. Ry. Com. p. 2617. December, r926 J 4 ture failed, prises had, t law which r for their pro liabilities. San Franci Judah we through new; ings, sought plan. It w, drama that t' entrance. James W. jeweler, and to Leland Sti chant of tha Judah had tains a pas; could be bui gineer had t porary orga, ford if he A story, and, 1 in the proje, Stanford first talk o friend, Colli ber of the h ton & Hopk Huntingtc night at 1 were subs( brought in ton's partne Crocker. J his story, done with Huntingt( ing to pay vey. Hew( he said, un such a sur agreed, and ahead, with the actual be as repr( be organizE Huntingt i Charles Cr, pioneer gr( tory as tb rare team. a success joining wit Sierra. E. which mad the miraclE Judah's er life. Huntin genius; B money Hu its wise E ried out a~ represente~ the quarte handling 1; work done Althoug~. men, the f our, at tl lation, cot part of th a railroac brought t than mon perience. and integ NOTE 12 December i~, L~_ ~- SOUTREP-N PACIFIC BULLETIN ture failed, as many similar enterprises had, there was the California law which made stockholders liable for their proportion of the company's liabilities. San Francisco said No. Judah went to Sacramento and, through newspapers and public meetings, sought to interest capital in his plan. It was at this stage of the drama that the Big Four made their entrance. James W. Bailey, a Sacramento jeweler, and a friend of Judah's, went to Leland Stanford, a prosperous rnerchant of that town, and told hin-i that Judah had discovered in the mountains a pass over which a railroad could be built. He told what the engineer had (lone in the way of temporary organization, and asked Stanford if he would see Judah, hear his story, an([, perhaps, put some money in the project.'2 Stanford asked Bailey to let him first talk over the matter with his friend, Collis P. Huntington, a member of the hardware firm of Huntington & Hopkins. Huntington and Stanford met that night at Stanford's home. There were subsequent meetings. They brought in Mark Hopkins, Huntington's partner, and their friend, Charles Crocker. Judah was invited to tell his story, which lie seems to have (lone with convincing effect. Huntin 'gton said lie would be willing to pay his share of a proper survey. He would promise nothing more, he said, until he knew the results of such a survey. To this the others a.-reed, and Judah was directed to go ahead, with the understanding that if the actual conditions were found to be as represented, a company would be organized to build the railroad. CHAPTER V. The Big Four. Huntington, Hopkins, Stanford, and Charles Crocker made up that strong pioneer group famous in western history as the Big Four. It was a rare team. Each member had made a success of his own business before , ining with the others to conquer the 10 Sierra. Each had developed qualities which made him a necessary part of the miracle-working organization that Judah's enthusiasm had fanned into life. Huntington was the financial genius; Hopkins took care of the money Huntington raised and guided its wise expenditure; Stanford carried out administrative policies, which represented the combined wisdom of the quartet; Crocker, with a gift for handling large forces of men, got the work done. Although all successful business men, the combined resources of the four, at the most extravagent calculation, could have been but a small part of the great sum needed to build a railroad across the Sierra. They brought to the job, however, more than money, more than business experience. They brought character and integrity. Their reputation for 12-U. S. Pac. R. R. Coin. p. 3774. .December, r926 common sense suffered, in the estimation of many of their friends, when they risked their fortunes in the Central Pacific, but their given word was accepted at face value even by their critics. Men who had no faith in the success of the Central Pacific advanced large sums of money on the personal guarantee of the Big Four. To estimate the debt the world owes these pioneer builders, it is necessary to understand the sacrifices they made to carry out this work. It's true that their ultimate reward was great, but not unduly so when it is considered what their railroad enterprise did for the West and for the generations that followed them. Furthermore, the fortunes they made were used, as long as they controlled them, in developing, extending and improving the transportation machinery of the great empire they had opened to the world. And they carried on until hatted by death. It shoul.-i lie rrmernbered also that the opportunity they grasped had been offered to practically every man of means in California before it came their way. After they began work, they offered to share their opportunity with any that would share the financial burden and the responsibility. The project was regarded with such distrust by financiers that even to buy shares in it before it was built was injurious to a man's credit. The builders put into the work the best years of their lives, their entire forturies, and all they could borrow. In the days when the Central Pacific was launched, men of middle age, particularly if they had been successful, thought more of retiring than of seeking new worlds to conquer. The associates were in this class. Judging by the standards of 1860, each had made his fortune and all had reached the age when custom counted it proper for men of their years to take it easy. Mark Hopkins, the oldest of the quartet, was 49; Huntington 41; Crocker 40; and Stanford 37. Instead of taking it easy, however, these men tackled what was then the biggest job in the world, and made a success of it. From that job they went to others. Death found each of the Big Four still in harness. Despite the saying that a prophet is not without honor except in his own country, all the appreciation of what these four men accomplished has not been left to this generation. Here is what a writer had to say about them in 1873, four years after the last spike had been driven in the transcontinental road: The projectors of the Central Pacific Railroad completed it, and today control and manage it; they did not let it slip out of their fingers; and, what is more, although only merchants, totally inexperienced in railroad building and railroad managing, they did their work so well that, in the opinion of the best engineers, their road is today one of the most thoroughly built and equipped and best-managed in the United States. Their bonds sell in Europe but little if any below United States Government bonds, and their credit as a company, in London, Frankfort, and Paris, is as high as that of the Government itself. Moreover, you are to remember that these Sacramento merchants who undertook to build a railroad through 800 miles of an almost uninhabited country, over mountains and across an alkali desert, were totally unknown to the great money world; that their When western railroading was young and California railroads could be figured within a couple of hundred miles, San Jose was the southernmost terminus of the state. This picture shows the railroad yard at that point in 1864 shortly after the line of the San Francisco-San Jose railroad was completed on January ib that year. D. C. Bailey was freight agent then. The first building at the right is the roundhouse, the building just beyond is the ticket office, and the one at the right is a hotel that was burned that year. There were no oil- burning locomotives in those days and the man in the foreground is sawing wood in lengths suitable for locomotive fuel. The picture was sent the Bulletin by D. C. Bailey, son ofthe pioneer freight agent, who is an engineer on Stockton Division, located at Tracy. Page Nine - SOUTHEP-N PACIFIC BULLETIN Railhead in June, 1865, when the Central Pacific line was being built through Dixie Cut near Gold Run station about 6o miles from Sacramento. roject was pronounced impracticable y engineers of reputation testifying before legislative committees; that it was opposed and ridiculed at every step by the moneyed men of San Francisco; that even in their own neighborhood they were thought sure to fail; and the 'Dutch Flat Swindle,' as their project was called, was caricatured, written down in pamphlets, abused in newspapers, spoken against by politicians, denounced by capitalists, and for a long time held in such ill repute that it was more than a banker's character for prudence was -worth to connect himself with it, even by subscribing for its stock. There have been many conflicting reports as to the actual wealth of the associates at the time they organized the Central Pacific. The best light on this comes from Collis P. Huntington himself. In testifying before the Pacific Railroad Commission in 1887, he said that the firm of Huntington & Hopkins in 1862 owned property valued between $500,000 and $600,000, and that their credit rating in their own business was probably about one million dollars. He also-testified that Governor Stanford was worth up in the hundred thousand several times and Crocker more than $200,000, and doing a thrifty business. 'a The combined fortunes of the associates would have been a very small part of the money needed for an undertaking like the construction of a railroad across the Sierra. It should NOTE 13-In discussing his relations with those associated with him in business, Collis P. Huntington said: That is the right way to ,do business in my opinion. I have been doing business over fifty years. My theory is the old theory, 'Trust all in all Or trust not at all,' as the poetry says, and I have always acted on that. Mark Hopkins has handled hundreds of millions of dollars that he and I were interested in together and I never asked him to show me a fi gure. Testimony Collis P. Huntington. U. S. R2ilway Commission. P. 36. be remembered, moreover, that their entire fortunes were not available for this purpose. Most of the capital 'of each of the associates was already invested in a going business so that there was available for investment in an outside venture like this only the surplus, the total amount of which we can only guess at. Huntington also told how the associates came together. In a general way, he testified, I believe that every member of the company came in at my personal solicitation. I spent many evenings until a late hour after getting through my regular business in going to see men. I went to see only those who were thrifty, and those I believed to be safe business men. He said that he wanted Governor Stanford in because he was a good business man and a clean man in all respects. Of Charles Crocker he said: He was doing a thrifty business and I counted him one of the best business men in California. One of the first things Huntington and his associates did after arranging for the survey of the route for the railroad was to investigate the causes of failure in other railroad enterprises. They found that in very few cases the men who started ventures of this kind had been able to hang on until the road was built. Their investigation showed them that improvident and extravagant management in the beginning was responsible for many of the failures. They found that many of these enterprises had been swamped by interest charges long before there was any offsetting revenue from operation. It was with these warnings before them that the Big Four plotted a course of close economy and arranged their financial deals so that interest payments were postponed as far into the future as possible. It was because of this little research work, done before any obliga tions had been incurred, that the associates insisted on having written into the Pacific Railroad Bill conditions whereby the Government pai( all interest on bonds advanced untii the bonds themselves matured. Here is an illustration of their practical economy: After organizing th( Central Pacific, one of the company's engineers brought in plans for a new building. How much will it cost? Hunting ton inquired. Very fine, He was told $12,000. he said, for by and by. For th present we are not doing much busi_ ness. This will be better. He then chalked an outline on one of the iron doors at 54 K Street, where Huntington & Hopkins' hardware store was located. The building thus outlined was put up in t-( days, cost $150, and served as tho company's headquarters for some time. When the business outgrew tho office, the first headquarters were turned into a paint shop. (To Be Continued) GOOD PROGRESS IS MADE BY FORMS COMMITTEE Good results are being accomplished by the Stationery Forms Committee, according to a report made by Chairman F. L. McCaffery on November 12. Up to that date 875 forms had been discontinued and 212 revised, a total of 1087 forms, or about 40 per cent of those considered. Of these, 649 were local, standard, and common standard forms, and 438 were unauthorized processes forms or temporary forms that were considered unnecessary. On the other hand, 578 unnumbered and temporary forms stood the test and were adopted for permanent use and given form numbers. More than 100 local forms havi! been adopted by system lines as conimon standard or standard. Results obtained by the committee during the first year of its work have been gratifying, says Mr. McCaffery, and are in a large measure due to the assistance and cooperation given by users of the forms that received attention. I wish to express my appreciation of all that has been done to aid in the important work we are engaged in and ask your continued interest in ihe work, that further reduction in number of stationery forms, may result. Several very good suggestions were received by the committee following, the request for such suggestions mad~e in the October Bulletin. WHAT YOUR JOB IS WORTH If your job pays you $100 per month, it's worth $20,000. That amount of money invested at 6 per cent, not a low rate by any means, would pay you no more than these wages. If you draw down $125 a month, it's equal to a $25,000 investment. A man with a capital of $50,000 is regarded as pretty well off even in this day and age, but even that amount wouldn't return him a cent more than $250 a month.-Ex. Ogden DECEMBE store fo. perintenApproximately tributed -on De of the Christm will go a long the wives and mas. This is split by the ell The Club w~ tenance of Wa by Arthur D. right of way ship of six. and,in 1924,1 who divided , 1925 there A $4817.70, and members to di Not only di excellent mea, bers are per] sums which i compulsory f, non-payment members fron posits as is voluntary r( Christmas sa' Every new trance fee of members are No member three shares $2 for each pay day or and other mo not paid wit matically b( interest for though the d Following loans and a weeks' peril counting froi $ 2.00 or I 2.01 to 5.01 to 10.01 to 20.01 to 3001 to 4~.01 to 50.01 to 60.01 to 70.01 to 80.01 to 90.01 to All mone~ period that on applicati entire men share basis, cording to Interest due each p same condil Loans ar. ever funds of priority not be mad the estim shares held they be in rent book ficient sect judgment 4 sirable. Member,, son before SOUTHF-P-N PACIFIC 13ULLETII-~0), Mli Fil ~t6 i4~tonvl Z V~ (Continued frona last month) 0NE of the strongest elements in the quartet's success was the absolute faith the partners had in each other. When Huntington went East to raise money he carried with him the unlimited plower of attorney of each of his associates. At one time, when money was unusually hard to get, Huntington telegraphed from New York for a sheaf of blank notes endorsed by all the associates. This demand at first scandalized the cautious Hopkins, but finally, not a sheaf perhaps, but a number of blanks with the requested endorsements were forwarded to Huntington. There is probably nothing in business today quite like the confidence which characterized the dealings of these pioneer builders. Many contracts for construction, covering miles of road and involving millions of dollars were merely verbal agreements. There is no record that there was ever any dispute when it came to settlement. Fiction has, perhaps, a few combinations comparable to this quartet, but in business never before and never since have there been four men who entered into a compact and played the game all for one and one for all as the Big Four did. The late William Hood, former chief engineer of the Southern Pacific, who entered the service in 1867 and worked under the direction of the Four as long as they lived, prompted by what he considered unfair criticism of the associates, had this to say about them: No College Careers They were all born at a time when colleges were small in attendance; and none of the associates had the advantages (or otherwise) of college teachings, which is true of numerous other great men, including Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. They came to California at the time when the discovery of gold caused an immigration of the world's most enterprising and able young men, amongst whom they were eminent for ability and would have attracted instant attention in any gathering of men of attainments. Each one of the four associates had special adaptations, and the work that each gave attention to was correspondingly apportioned. Mr. Charles January, jgz7 Crocker was cheerful and forceful and had a personality that caused all employes from heads of departments to Chinese coolies to do their best and work with an interest as if the property and enterprise were their own; and, at the same time, Mr. Crocker was never an obvious driver or taskmaster, and held the almost affectionate regard of all his subordinates. In business matters and circles it was universally understood that the word of the associates was as good as their bond, and it was well known that they countenanced nothing other than scrupulous fairness to laborers and to all who had just claims upon them. So complete was the confidence of all employes in their integrity, that there were instances when the company was hard pressed for money, for interest and other maturing obligations, when notice was sent out Is There Person Living Who Began Railroad Work Before 1847? THE Bulletin would like to learn if there is any person living who started railroad work before Joseph M. Graham, now a resi, dent of Berkeley, Cal. Mr. Graham is 85 years old and is in excellent health. When he was only six years old Mr. Gra, ham had a regular job carrying water to the men doing construction work on the Galena & Chicago Union Railway, the first railroad line out of Chicago. This was in 1847. His father was one of the engineers on the job. When not going to school he did work of one kind or another in connection with railroad construction. During construction of the Central Pacific, original line of the present Southern Pacific, he was for several years assistant engineer and resident engineer on the line over the Sierra, His acquaintance with S. S. Montague, chief engineer for the Central Pacific, brought him to the West and he started work for the Central Pacific in May, 1867, remain, I . ng with the Company until the middle of 1881. After that time he was connected with other western railroad companies. It's a long time back to 1847. Probably there is no person living in the United States who started railroad work before that date. If there is the editor of the Bulletin would like to have the name and address. over the railroad to that effect, and asking all employes to get along with pay postponerrient for a month, there was no murmuring or loss of confidence, but, on the contrary, the employes seemed to feel it a privilege to be able to help out. After succeeding in building the Central Pacific, instead of being financially wrecked as freely predicted, and as they themselves feared, the ambition seized the four associates to build a great system of railroads to develop the Pacific Coast, which was most fortunate for California, and this ambition was steadfastly held to, through extreme discouragements and risks. It is inevitable in such a case that a monopoly for a time of ownership of railroads was necessarily created, and the only way to prevent it was for the associates to stop building railroads, which was very far from the wish of the various parts of the state which needed railroad transportation. Advanced West California would have been many years longer without a complete railroad system if these associates had failed to devote their energies and risk their fortunes in railroad construction. The assumption that other railroads would have built to and through California if these associates had not done it has nothing to support it in view of the facts, which are that no railroads would have come to California until after the railroads' built by the associates had developed the state enough to make it worth their while to build without risk and get a share of the business developed by iiie pioneer railroad constructions. There are some interesting personal remembrances in San Francisco of these pioneer builders, which the fire of 1906 spared. In 1874, when the hard battle with the Sierra had been won, Stanford, Hopkins and Crocker built for themselves homes on that part of Califorilia Street, San Francisco, known as Nob Hill, near where, the Fairmont Hotel now -stands. The Stanford home was at the corrier of California and Powell streets and occupied the easterly half of the 11. block bounded by California, Powell, Pace Thirteen Pine, and Mason Streets. On the west half of the block, Mark Hopkins built his home. The Hopkins Art Institute, which was built there after the fire of 1906, has been replaced by a skyscraper apartment house. Across the street, on the site now occupied by Grace Cathedral, Charles Crocker bought the block bounded by California, Sacramento, Taylor, and Jones streets, and there built his home. On the same side of California Street, in what is now the children's playground known as Huntington Square, stood the white colonial mansion built D. C. Colton, which was afterwar~dy, the San Francisco home of Collis P. Huntington. Although the fire of'*1906 destroyed these homes, the stone walls which surrounded them remain. Around Grace Cathedral still stands the iron and granite wall built by Charles Crocker, conqueror of the Sierra. The boundary of Huntington Park, was Collis P. Huntington's fence. When Stanford started to build his home, the lot developed a habit of sliding down the steep Powell Street hill. A number of bulkheads were put in, but one after the other slid out, until Stanford, losing patience, announced that men who had made a railroad that stayed put on the steep sides of the Sierra should certainly be able to tame a city hill, no matter how steep. He turned the problem over to railroad engineers. They solved it by excavating a foundation for the bulkhead in such a way that, while the hill slanted from north to south, the foundation slanted .from south to north. The bulkhead has stayed there ever since because, before it can slide down the Powell Street hill, it must slide up the hill the railroad engineers built. This bulkhead, which extends around the entire block, is still in service and there is nothing more substantial in San Francisco. Built Cable Railroad It was to provide convenient transportation to this location that Stanford built the California Street Railroad. Crocker, Hopkins, and others joined in the application for a fran,hise, but practically everybody but Stanford dropped out before the road was built. Out of 5,000 shares, Stanford owned 4,750. Crocker took no part except to allow his name to be used in the application for the franchise, and Hopkins declined to invest on the ground that it would cost more money than they could possibly get back in five-cent pieces. It would probably pay a dividend, he said, at the same time as Hotel de Hopkins referring to his own residence theln under construction. Collis P. Huntington was born Octo ber 22, 1821, at Harwinton, Conn., and died August 13, 1900, outliving his three associates. Of his boyhood we know a little through the anecdotes he was fond of tellin . gr later in life. He was a born trader and seems to have realized from the beginning that t4e only way to build business was to give service. As a small boy, he was once engaged by a neighbor to cut cordwood. He riot only cut the wood, Page Fourteen - SOUTHEP-N PACIFIC BULLETDr MARK HOPKINS Treasurer of the Central Pacific and all allied accivi ties of the Big Four. He was the oldest of the four men, being 49 years old when the Central Pacific was organized, and was affectionately known as Uncle Mark. but stacked it neatly and then swept the yard. The neighbor was so pleased he gave Huntington an extra dollar and told him if he would come around next year he would let him cut the wood again. In telling the story afterwards, Huntington said his pleasure over the extra dollar was greatly dimmed by disgust at the idea that anybody should think that he would be doing odd jobs a year from that date. Huntington went into business at the age of 22 with an older brother at Oneonta, New York. He came to California in 1849, and, after a brief stay in San Francisco, where he made some money trading, he established himself in the hardware business at Sacramento. Huntington liked to tell the story of the first money he made in San Francisco. The same rules, based on common sense that enabled Huntington to manage the financial end of the vast undertakings that he and the others of the Big Four carried out, also governed his daily life and his own personal affairs. When he arrived in San Francisco in 1849 and was undecided as to where he would attempt to establish himself, he found that waiting while he made up his mind was a very expensive affair. The cheapest table board of endurable quality was very high, and Huntington, a very powerful young man, had no intention of reducing his capital by paying out living expenses. During the period of contemplation he found that stevedores were scarce and commanded big wages, so he got a job as a stevedore and, while working, kept eyes and ears alert for information and trading opportunities. One day a ship anchored in the bay that he learned was from Manila. As soon as he quit work he hired a boatman to row him to the ship. When he got on board he smelt potatoes, which he knew were very scarce in San Francisco. He found the captain of the ship, who was also the supercargo, or purser, or agent, was somewhat discouraged about his cargo, which consisted almost entirely of potatoes, which he feared would spoil before he could dispose of them. He was very glad to accept the cash offer from the young stevedore for the entire cargo, which Huntington sold at a very handsome profit. Huntington ascribed his good fortune to the fact that by taking a job he kept himself in close touch with what was going on and was enabled to get his information of the ship and its cargo. Before reaching San Francisco and while waiting on the Isthmus of Panama for a steamer to bring him to the Golden Gate, Huntington found very poor transportation for the people crossing the Isthmus. He selected a partner from among his fellow passengers,. organized a boat, canoe and pack train service across the Isthmus, and within a few weeks established a profitable business, which he was able to sell for a handsome figure by the time the steamer for San Francisco was ready to sail. While still seeking a field for his talents in California, Huntington discovered that many of the miners whom he visited in the mountains were hungry for pets. San Francisco at that time was pestered with too many cats. Huntington relieved San Francisco of a large number of its furry surplus, shipped them to the mountains, and sold the San Francisco pests to the miners for pets at pet prices. Stanford Was Governor Leland Stanford was elected governor of California in 1861 and served during 1862 and 1863. Two years was then the regular term. From the time of his election until his death, regardless of the office he held, he was addressed and spoken of by his friends as Governor Stanford. Even when he was United States senator from California he was still Governor to his friends in the West. He was born March 9, 1824, the fourth of a family of seven. His father, who was a farmer, was one of the builders of the Albany & Schenectady Railroad, which was built in 1829, was 15 miles long, and was one of the first railroads built in the United States. The little railroad played an important part in young Stanford's boyhood, but as a field for a career seems to have offered him no inducement at that time, for his 20th birthday found him studying law. He was admitted to the bar in 1845 and might have spent the rest of his life at Fort Washington, Wisconsin, where he started to practice, but for a fire in 1852 which destroyed his law library and most of his other property. Gold had been discovered in California and young America was going west in large numbers. Stanford emigrated to California in 1852 and went into business at Michigan Bluff in Placer County. He removed later to Sacramento, and 1856 finds him an V .6 acti ford ceri. mar fair S. gen( autl Fou Gov scri but crat mer min foul he 1 his cou: 41 just plo, taci and tun; que V tab] Fra it a A. and ger far ho-vi mal E a,~ get Sar he tior pos S 189 left ver mei Sta age C reci car pat roa of mei Fhe imy oth hea Crc w a., rec, bee gin mil one the Cer cac Ino da~ N soc W 0 (,'r( con I Cr( N 186 active member of the firm of Stanford Bros., dealers in- oils and groceries. He Was a.successfuI business man and a -power in the political, Affairs of the state. Stanford was looked upon by-the general public' as having the mos - t authority of any of the so-called 'Big Four. William Hood, who -knew Governor Stanford intimately, de scribed him as: reserved in manner, but always kindly,and wholly demo cratic. If a new employe in the Sacra mento office was engaged, even in a minor capacity, Mr. Stanford soon found occasion to meet him and say he was glad the company had secured his services, and otherwise spoke en couragingly to young men. Mr. Stanford had a keen sense of justice and impressed it on all employes with whom he came in contact. He was regarded with respect and almost affection by those fortunate enough to meet him frequently. When the commutation rate was established on the ferries between San Francisco and Oakland, Stanford fixed it at $3 a month, over the protest of A. N. Towne, general superintendent, and IF. ff. Goodman, general passenger agent, who declared the rate was far below cost. Stanford insisted, however, that the company wanted to make it easy for people to live in the East Bay district where they could get land for homes cheaper than in San Francisco. One way to do this, he said, was to make the transportation charge as nearly like carfare as possible. Stanford died at Palo Alto June 21, 1893, aged 69 yeaTs and 4 months. He left his fortune to' Stanford University, which he had founded as a memorial to his only child, Leland Stanford Jr., who died in 1884 at the age of 16 years. , Crocker-The Builder Charles Crocker, under whose direction the work of construction was carried out with such magnificent dispatch that the Central Pacific Railroad was com~leted seven years ahead of the time allowed by the government, is still remembered for his ,ift for cheerfulness. He had a rare g imparting his own enthusiasm -to others, which, made him the ideal head of a. great working force. Crocker's -job with the organization was to get things done, and - therecords he establish9d have ..neve-i been beaten. American army engineers in France in 1918 built 130 miles of railroad track in 100 days, or one and three-tenths miles per day; the builders of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific when racing to meet each other built 1100 miles in thirteen. months, an average of three-miles per day. William Hood, who was closely as~, sociated with Mr. Crocker in the work of construction, said that Crocker also had the gift of sound common sense in a marked degree. flood said: I never heard of Mr. Crocker reproving or speaking to. any NdTg 14-Report Chief-Enjincer C. F. K R., 1861. iranuary, r9z7 - SOUTHEP-N PACIFIC BULLETIN - one except in encouragement and in a manner to increase the man's selfrespect and instil a desire to continue in his good opinion. He was able to convince those orking under his direction that he believed they were doing their best, and they did it. Crocker, going among a large force -of men, so enthused them with his spirit that, when he went away, instead of the work slackening, it went on faster than ever. Crocker, like the other associates, was a successful merchant when he and the others organized the Central Pacific Railroad Company. He was a native -of.-Troy, New York, where he was~ born September 16, 1822. He was only ten years old when he began to earn the money with which a few years later he helped his father to purchase a farm in Indiana, to which state the family moved in 1836. Here, after helping for two years to clear and cultivate the land, he found employment in a saw-mill, and later in a forge. He worked there for $11 a month and board, and was allowed to attend the district school in the winter. He became a thorough and efficient workman and started a forge of his own, which he conducted with fair success. Crossed the Plains In 1850 he crossed the plains to California. Two years later, after some mining experience, he established what became the leading dry goods house in Sacramento. In 1860 hewas elected to the state legislature on the republican ticket. In 1862 he gave up politics.and the management of his business, everything, to devote his fortune, time and abilities to the Pacific Railroad enterprise. - He died at Monterey August 14, 1888. One of the men still alive who worked under Crocker in the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad paid him this tribute. Wherever Charley Crocker was engaged, labor and capital were -just like this -he il.~lustrated this by'locking both hands together= and,'.'Jie continued, it was some fist.ft Mark Hopkins,' Huntliliiit ner, treasurer of the Central Pacific. and of other allied activities of the Big F , our, was the oldest of the quartet. He was 49 years of ago when the Central Pacific was or ganized. , Hopkins, who came of Puritan stock, was born September 1, 1813, at Henderson, New York. His farnily moved in 1825 to St. Clair, Michigan. Hopkins' business career started when he was 16 as a clerk in a mercantile firm, first in Niagara County, New York, and afterwards at Lockport, where he became leading partner in the firm of Hopkins & Hughes. In 1837 he added to his commercial equipment by studying law. In 1849 he sold out and went to San Francisco, where he arrived August 5 of that year. A few months -later he opened a store at Placerville, taking his own goods there by an ox team from Sacramento. The year following he entered the wholesale grocery business with his friend and fellowpassenger, E. H. Miller, Jr., who was afterwards secretary of the Central Pacific Railroad Company. In 1855 he entered partnership with Collis,.P. Huntington at Sacramento and con-, tinued a member of that firm until his death in March, 1878. Every project in which the asso-' ciates embarked was submitted t6. Hopkins for his final approval. All the associates had implicit faith in his judgment. He is described by a contemporary as thoughtful, quiet man of rather slender build, who wore long, grey whiskers and mustache, and spoke with a slight lisp. His nephew, E. W. Hopkins, was his assistant. Hopkins Was Balance-Wheel Bancroft, in his History of Cali~ fornia, says: Hopkins' most marked traits. were less of the positive sort thanthose.of his associates, by ~whozn ~e is describe d as 'one of -the true*t. and-best men that ever lived,' an&asA~balance- wheel in the company. -11 :,po~OiAhought anything. finished until, on s--paFt , ',',H6bkins looked at it,' says the vice~ V: Truckee was-a mighty busy point during the time the first linesof the Central Pacific were being buili bvii , the Sierra. This picture of the yard and depot was takeri during 1868. page Fifteers Now . While still less costly than prunes and not half so expensive as butter, the price of locomotives has increased more than ten cents a pound since 1915. With prunes quoted at 19 cents and butter at 40 cents a pound, the Company last year paid an average price of 17.3 centsa pound for.,11,218,600 pounds of locomotive, as compared with an average cost of 7.09 cents a pound in 1915. Few people are aware of the fact that during ten years in which food stuffs prices advanced 46 per cent, the cost of locomotives advanced 140 per cent. The Pacific type locomotive that in 1925 cost $25,585 now costs approximately $75,000. Page Sixteen president (C. P. Huntington), which is praise enough. Hopkins disliked waste of any kind. It was his thrift that made the costly dollars of the construction days go as far as they did. His example and that of his associates are still paying dividends. A picture of Mark Hopkins walking through the shops at Sacramento picking up carelessly-dropped bolts and nuts may suggest to the unthinking a petty occupation, but it led to the establishment of a special department for the salvage and reclamation of worn and discarded materials and the care anti sale of all scrap. Each year more than one million dollars is saved through recovery of material by repairs and reclamation. (To be continiied next month) LOCOMOTIVE PRICES HAVE RISEN 10 CENTS PER POUND OUTIIEP-N PACIFIC BULLETIN Hoover Praises Fine Work of Railroads Taken from annual report of Herbert Hoover, Secretary of Cominerce. PROBABLY the most outstanding single industrial accomplish ment since the war has been the reorganization of our Ameri can railways. Our transportat;ion was not only demoralized bir Government operation during the war but had suf fered from chronic car shortages and insufficient service, not only after the war but for many years before. The annual loss from this periodic stran gulation in transportation was esti mated in the department's annual re port of 1925 to amount to hundreds of millions a year. The insufficiency of transportation interfered with steady industrial operations, created inter mittent employment, increased the costs of -production, and, through peri odic stran ' gulation, caused high prices to the consumer. Manufacturers and distributors were compelled to carry excessive inventories as a protective measure, thus not only increasing the amount of capital required in the business, but multiplying the danger of loss by price fluctuation. The railways, during the past five years, not only have built up adequate service and given a complete correction to these ills, but they have, by great ability of their managers, greatly reduced transportation costs. It is an interesting commentary upon Government operation that private enterprise has been able to operate the railways with far fewer employes and at the same time load almost 15 per cent more cars than the Government administration. In 1920, This photograph shows part of the office personnel of the Auditor of Passenger Accounts in July, 1901. Ed.,E. Holton was then auditor of that office, which was located in the old General Office building at 4th and To~ingerid Streets. The decorations are in observance of the Fourth of July. - Left to right-Thos. Branson. Chas: DeLand,, Wrn.-Fasset, W. Stevens. W. Parkinson, recentIA retired on pension; Geo. White, Jimmie the janitor; Ed. E. Holton. L. H. Fuller. A. G. Fisher, 0. F. Gi n. 8resent auditor of passenger Jo in accounts; A. L. Burgan. at present Earnin Clerk in the same office; hn umm is. Duke Hague, Geo. , an is Bosch d immie O'Donnell. the last year of Government operation, the total number of employes rose to 1,999,000 as compared with 11783 000 in 1925. Th~ result of this great reorganization upon the whole economic fabric of the country has been far-reaching. Rapid dispatch has greatly reduced the inventories of the country, has contributed to stabilization of production and employment, and has increased the efficiency of all production and distribution. One of the contributions to this success, and a fine example of cooperation between different industries and trades, has been the great service of the regional advisory boards created by the American Railway Association. These boards have been organized in practically every section of the country, and are representatives of all the shii)pers and receivers in each territory - farmers, manufacturers and distributors. Transportation needs have been analyzed and anticipated quarterly; car requirements are regularly estimated. The boards have also made studies of markets and market. methods in the promotion of more ing even distribution of commodities; they have contributed to the solution of railway problems of better loading and higher operating efficiency. Two years ago the Department of Commerce, in an exhaustive report on Pacific Coast perishables, laid down certain principles essential to more stable marketing and the elimination of the great wastes in marketing which were a burden upon both the producer and consumer. An extremely important experiment is now in progress in the development of cooperation in a wholly larger sense in an endeavor to cure the evils there pointed out. Under the leadership of the American Railway Association, a joint committee has been created embracing representatives of the growers, bankers, shippers, and railway executives and others having to do with the grape crop in California. The Department of Commerce, the Interstate Commerce Commission,and the Department of Agriculture are a-Ro cooperating with this committee. The object is to develop a control of the shipment and marketing of the annual crop of some 70,000 carloads of grapes to the end that more stable returns may be secured to the growers and great wastes eliminated in transportation and marketing. If this experiment can be developed to the degree hoped for, it will represent a new departure, not alone in transportation but in an enlarged service of cooperative marketing as well. it will give stability in the grape industry~an industry in which there is an . n estment of over $125,000,000 of capital aside from something over $100,000,000 of specialized equipment for transportation-and ise of a solution for handling other perishable crops throughout the country in a fashion enormously beneficial to the farm*er and consumer primarily, and. secondarily of value to the railwayg in more orderly transportation. laftuarY, r9Z7Wai Le ol w Legio tunitv Lotrio 1927, Paul 40 of th sence who, z to ma All the o under be co end t] may emplc ices c Lee grant to e Stean ana I Em pany, bers impol patiol pecte4 repre Secon fall. cific and r 'other the ci Th( veter; must Lezic 1926. a qui hers. injir s from Ro4 gradE estim way Th ;klnel that trip for i For I datio $450. bers FOO' I Co lille I the 84111 dav Ile 0 t tr in buirr busif Wits (10101 (Celt! T~ ED TO ith the au has eineau than errick, r first S. many ill be RY who n on for n at his ega so ful ried the ugh ars, to en at SOUTHERN PACIFIC BULLETIN' CHAPTER VI. Central Pacific Railroad of California Incorporated UDAH went into the mountains and during the fall of 1860 made barometrical observations on three routes: one through El Dorado County by way of Georgetown; another by way of Dutch Flat (the route selected for the Central Pacific); and a third by Nevada and Henness Pass. These observations confirmed Judah's belief that the Dutch Flat route offered a means of crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains with grades not greater than 105 feet t~ the mile. Field parties were organized in the spring of 1861, and a thorough survey demonstrated that the difficulties and formidable features of this range could be either avoided or successfully overcome for railroad purposes. Among the features which rendered the Sierra Nevada mountains so formidable for railroad operations were the great elevation to be overcome in a comparatively short distance; the want of uniformity in the western slopes; the difficultv of river crossings in the mountains, and the precipitous second summit of the range. Natural ]Route The line Judah selected might have been made to order. It followed a practically unbroken divide lying between the American River and its north fork on the south and the Bear River and the South Yuba on the north. Along the line of this ridge, which ran from base to summit of the Sierra, only one river crossing in the mountains was necessary. The line also avoided the second summit of the Sierra and the crossing of the Washoe Mountains. Meanwhile, in Washington, the government, bombarded from all sections of the country, had been unable to decide on any plan to meet the growing demand for a Pacific Railroad. In 1855 the Secretary of War had made a report to Congress on the several surveys made under his direction. While this report increased interest in a Pacific Railroad, it also stimulated sectional jealousies which for a long time stood in the way of selecting any one route for a railroad. Each part of the country through which it could pass, wanted it and no section was willing to step aside and let the prize go elsewhere. February, 1927 It was a game of dog in the manger on a national scale.' The history of the Pacific Railroad in Congress for several years thereafter was a repetition and elaboration of the arguments, estimates, opinions, and plans which had been put forth by individuals and conventions since 1832. The report of the Secretary of War was referred to a select committee, which reported a bill providing for the construction of a transcontinental railroad by the contractor who wo?ld make the lowest bid for carrving troops, mails, and government freight. W. M. Gwin, senator from California, offered as a substitute a bill providing for three roads. This bill passed the Senate but the House took no notice of it. The next session a number of Pacific Railroad bills were introduced. All this time the question of slavery was becoming more and more a vital issue. The southern legislators would not support a northern road lest the northern population should flow out and absorb the public lands along its route; the north would not permit the south to have it lest it should prove a link to bind the territory acquired from Mexico, including California, to the slaveholding states. For successive sessions, through all the political excitement which preceded the Civil War, the Pacific Railroad question was presented over and over NOTE 15-Gwin's bill provided for one road c mmencing at the western border of Texas, another at the border of Missouri or Iowa, and a third at the border of Wisconsin. He named them respectively the Southern, Central, and Northern Pacific Railroads. The bill required the contractor in each case to deposit $500,040 with the government, of which he could draw out $5,000 at a time as work to that amount ~Vaslcompletcd. The roads were to be divided in 00-mile sections. The bill provided that there should be set apart for the construction of these roads a quantity of public land equal to the odd numbered sect i on s for the space of twelve miles on each side of the road for the entire length. The builder, after completing the first 100 miles and having it in operation, was to receive three-quarters and an advance of $2,500,000 in United States six-per-cent bonds, this money to be repaid fifteen years after the completion 0 f the road. Bond aid was to be limited to $15,000,000. All lands unsold at the end of ten years was to revert to the government. When fully completed, the road was to be surrendered to the government, which in turn would surrender it to the various states those sections that passed through their territory. These sections would be operated thereafter by the different states. again. In the session of 1860-61 the House passed a bill'providing for two roads. The Senate amended it and passed a bill calling for three roads. The House refused to take any action. South Carolina seceded from the Union December 20, 1860, followed uy other states. On January 9, 1861, trie ship Star of the West, on its way to Fort Sumter, was fired on by a confederate battery. On April 12, For