Durant (1820–1885), the railroad's vice president, was largely in control of Union Pacific from the start.
It was to build its tracks from Nebraska west to meet the ongoing construction of the Central Pacific. The other railroad created by the 1862 act was the Union Pacific Railroad Company. Judah died before the work was fully underway, but the Big Four went on to oversee the building of the Central Pacific Railroad. Huntington (1821–1900), one-term California governor Leland Stanford (1824–1893), businessman Mark Hopkins (1813–1878), and store owner Charles Crocker (1822–1888). To handle the business end of the Central Pacific, he brought together a group of California men who came to be known as the Big Four: store owner Collis P. The Central Pacific Company had been organized in California by railroad engineer Theodore Dehone Judah (1826–1863), who had long dreamed of building a railroad that would cross California's Sierra Nevada Mountains and travel eastward. Construction on the Central Pacific lines was to begin in Sacramento and work its way east. Under the act, two companies, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific, were to build the railroad. The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 called for building a transcontinental railroad from Omaha, Nebraska, to Sacramento, California. More land grants to the railroads occurred throughout the decade, but the greatest land grants were the result of the Pacific Railroad acts of 18. That year Congress authorized its first federal grant (a transfer or property by deed or writing), which consisted of public land to help promote and finance railroad construction. The transcontinental railroad was clearly going to cost more than any previous American businesses, and by 1850 most people agreed that the federal government should provide aid to railroad companies to start the process. Many thought building such a railroad was impossible because of the great distance to be covered and the engineering obstacles to be overcome, especially the tremendous amount of money required for the project. The transcontinental railroadīy the 1850s most Americans recognized that westward expansion and industrial growth depended on a transcontinental railroad-one that spanned the continent from the East Coast to the West Coast. transcontinental railroad: A railroad that spans a continent, from coast to coast. patent: A legal document issued by a government granting exclusive authority to an inventor for making, using, and selling an invention. monopoly: The exclusive possession or right to produce a particular good or service. magnate: A powerful and influential person in an industry. grant: A transfer or property by deed or writing. gauge: Distance between the rails of a railroad track. capital: Accumulated wealth or goods devoted to the production of other goods. bond: A certificate of debt issued by a government or corporation that guarantees repayment of the original investment with interest by a specified date. Words to Know bankruptcy: A state of financial ruin in which an individual or corporation cannot pay its debts.
Still, even though the government did offer some help, the tremendous expansion of the railroads in the second half of the nineteenth century was accomplished mainly through the active private enterprise of the railroad magnates. The railroad tycoons engaged in destructive competition with each other and exploited their laborers. Some methods were legitimate, others questionable, and many were downright illegal. Early railroad magnates (powerful and influential people in the industry) found many opportunities to get very rich. The race to build railroads in the last four decades of the nineteenth century was dramatic but not graceful. In The Rise of Industrial America: A People's History of the Post-Reconstruction Era author Page Smith comments: "In retrospect it appeared it had been the lack of adequate transportation, above all else, that had kept civilization moving at a mere camel's pace, or a mule's or ox's pace, prior to the railroad era … the railroads accelerated the process to a degree that the mind could hardly comprehend." No other business so dramatically stimulated and embodied the industrialization process. The construction of the railroads spawned huge new industries in steel, iron, and coal. Where railroads went, towns and cities with bustling new commerce arose, all dependent on the railways for shipments of food and goods. As the chief system of transportation of goods and people, railroads were essential to American industry. An increase in railroad construction between 18 changed the United States, helping make it the industrial nation it is today.
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