Chapter 26
CHAPTER XXVI. THE CENTRAL PACIFIC RAILROAD. The Pacific Railroad Bill, which closed the long struggle for a transcontinental railway, provided that the road should start on the 100th meridian between the Republican and Platte Rivers, and proceed westward along the most direct, central, and practical route to the
western boundary of Nevada, there to meet and connect with the line of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California. The bill thus authorized the construction of two distinct roads. The one, designated the Union Pacific, was to reach from Omaha to the California boundary. The other, known as the Central Pacific, was to be built eastward from Sacramento until it crossed the Sierra Nevada mountains. It is the purpose of this narrative to deal only with the construction
of the Central Pacific, except where the history of the two roads becomes inseparable, and to leave the fascinating but somewhat intricate affairs of the Union Pacific and Oak Ames' credit mobile to other writers. The Central Pacific found its origin in the enthusiasm of one man, and owed its completion to the determination and shrewdness of four. A civil engineer, named Theodore D. Judah, had come to the coast in 1854 to lay out a pioneer railroad,
called the Sacramento Valley Line, which ran between the city of Sacramento and Folsom. Before Judah was through with this local road, he had been caught by the challenge of the Sierra and began to plan the conquest of the mountains. Within the next few years, often in the dead of winter when the snow lay 15 or 20 feet deep on the higher levels, Judah made 22 examinations of possible routes across the Sierra, and in the intervals between these trips, he tried to
organize popular backing for his undertaking. The California public, so far as mere talk was concerned, was full of enthusiasm for the road, but for a long time Judah's efforts did not bring out any financial support. Footnote. A great railroad convention was held at San Francisco in 1859 at the call of the state legislature, to which every county in California, Arizona, Washington and Oregon was requested to send delegates. Its sessions, presided over by
John Bidwell, lasted for several days, but accomplished little or nothing of a practical nature. In footnote. He continued his agitation, however, as vigorously as ever, and at last secured the tangible assistance the enterprise so badly needed. This was the incorporation, June 28, 1861, of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California, with a capital stock of 85,000 shares and a nominal value of $100 each. The officers of the new company were all engaged
in business in Sacramento, and from the very beginning the Central Pacific became more of a partnership affair than a corporation. Leland Stanford, nominated but 10 days before the organization of the company for the governorship of the state by the Republican Party, and destined to win the election the following September, was chosen president. Collis P. Huntington became vice president. Mark Hopkins, treasurer, and James Bailey, a jeweler through whom Judah had become
acquainted with Stanford and Huntington, became secretary. Judah himself was chosen chief engineer. The three men first mentioned, together with Charles Crocker, whose name intentionally did not appear as one of the company's directors, were in reality the Central Pacific Railroad. They afterwards became the most powerful railroad group in the West, and for nearly a generation were the controlling factor in the state's
economic development. At this time, however, they were neither very rich nor very widely known, and the task to which they had put their hands was overwhelmingly great. Stanford, Hopkins, and Crocker were all born in New York, and Huntington, though a native of Connecticut, had lived most of his life in the same state. Stanford and Hopkins, as young men, were educated for the law, but Huntington and Crocker had known little schooling of any kind
except the schooling of poverty and hard work. All four reached California at the time of the gold rush, and eventually became the leading merchants of Sacramento. Stanford and Crocker were in the dry goods trade, while Huntington and Hopkins, more than a decade before, had formed a mutually satisfactory partnership to deal in hardware and miner supplies. From the time these four men joined forces in the organization of the Central Pacific, until the combination was finally
dissolved by death, they worked together as a unit, opposing a solid front to all opposition, and never allowing personal disagreements or jealousies to defeat their purpose. This perfect teamwork largely accounted for their phenomenal success. It is remarkable, however, considering the character of the men, that they should have maintained such harmonious relations over so many years, for with a possible exception of Hopkins,
all four were men of determined wills and vigorous opinions. Huntington once said, Crocker attended to the construction of the road, and he was a very earnest and good man. We did not agree in all things, he erred in judgment sometimes. One of the reasons for the successful cooperation of the four was the wise division of labor very
early made between them. Almost from the outset, Crocker was put in charge of the actual construction of the line. Huntington became the company's eastern representative, attending to the national legislation, purchasing material, and securing funds. Stanford handled state politics and managed the financial end in California, and Hopkins, with his keen analytical mind, served as a valuable advisor for the others, and particularly aided Stanford in local matters.
When Judah presented his plan to these men in 1861 for a railroad across the Sierra, he was able to hold before them two inducements which made the enterprise less foolhardy from the financial standpoint than it seemed on its face. The first of these was a prospect of securing government subsidies of various kinds, and the second, the certainty of monopolizing the California-Nevada trade by the proposed road, even though the line should stop far short of its
announced goal. This Nevada trade, at the time of the Central Pacific's inception, was a prize worth seeking. Two years before, the great Comstock load had been discovered in the Washoe Mountains, and a mining boom of tremendous proportions was already in progress. Nearly all the food and necessaries for the thousands who flocked to Carson City and Virginia City, as well as the tools and heavy machinery which were required for the mining operations,
had to be freighted across the mountains. Literally tons of bullion were also being brought back annually to San Francisco for minting or shipment east, and in addition, the passenger traffic to and from the mines was a bonanza in itself. Some idea of the value of this Nevada business, which the organizers of the Central Pacific proposed to secure, may be seen from Judah's report in 1862 on the Placerville-Carson Road.
This, the most famous stage road of Northern California, ran from Placerville by way of Johnson Pass and Kingsbury Grade to the Washoe Valley. Over it, in the year of Judah's report, 120 tons of freight were carried daily at rates varying from six to eight cents a pound, yielding an annual total of five and a quarter millions of dollars. A half million dollars additional were received from passenger fares, and Wells Fargo transported
over 200,000 pounds of silver bullion not included in the figures for ordinary freight. If the Central Pacific, by building only partway across the mountains, could capture the greater part of that trade, together with that which passed over other stage roads, its directors might well afford to risk even the heavy initial cost of construction. The second inducement held out by Judah, that of federal subsidies, was of more immediate
importance than even the Nevada freight, for it was manifestly impossible to provide the necessary finances for the road without some form of government assistance. In securing this federal aid, the backers of the Central Pacific were by no means disappointed, and an essential feature of the Pacific Railroad bill, which Bailey and Judah helped to pass through Congress, was the grants of land and credits bestowed upon the railroad companies.
These were sufficient in themselves to tempt Huntington and his companions to begin actual operations, but two years later, by the Act of 1864, the government proved itself even more generous and materially increased the subsidies carried in the original bill of 1862. As a result of these two bills, the builders of the Central Pacific stood to receive 12,800 acres of government land for each mile of track constructed, and, in addition,
were allowed a credit in United States 6% bonds payable at the end of 30 years both as to principal and interest of from $16,000 to $48,000 per mile, depending upon the nature of the ground over which the line ran. Following the example of Congress, the California legislature also passed various measures to aid the Central Pacific, enacting as high as seven bills in a single session on its behalf.
The most important grants were made in 1864. Legislation of that year gave the company the right to issue $12 million in first mortgage 20-year 7% bonds and provided that the state should pay the interest for 20 years on the first $1,500,000 issued, or a total of $2,100,000. A fund known as the Pacific Railroad Fund was created for this purpose by the levy of a special tax of 8 cents on each $100 of taxable property throughout the state.
County subsidies were also granted to supplement those of state and nation. Placer County subscribed for $250,000 of Central Pacific stock, issuing bonds and payment, and under a similar arrangement Sacramento County pledged $300,000. The company also obtained a valuable right-of-way, certain portions of the waterfront, and other public lands in the city of Sacramento. San Francisco, after a long struggle fought in the
state legislature, at the polls and before the courts, donated $400,000 outright to the main road and $200,000 to its subsidiary, the Western Pacific. The latter road, connecting the Central Pacific with the San Francisco Bay by way of Stockton, Niles, San Jose and Oakland, also received valuable aid from San Joaquin and Santa Clara counties, and enjoyed besides the federal subsidies provided by the Act of 1864.
Even though these various government subsidies were of princely proportions, the fate of the Central Pacific for two years hung in the balance. From the beginning, the enterprise was foredoomed to failure by the profits, and even its sponsors were not over-hopeful of the outcome. It was this skepticism that led Huntington to object when others planned a celebration at the laying of the first rail.
If you want to jubilate in driving the first spike here, said he, go ahead and do it. I don't. These mountains look too ugly and I see too much work ahead. We may fail and I want to have as few people know it as we can, and if we get up a jubilation, a little anybody can drive the first spike, but there are many months of hard labor and unrest between the first and last spike. These months of hard labor and unrest between the first and last spike,
which Huntington foresaw, not caring to boast as he was putting his armor on, were even worse than the builders anticipated. The difficulties of construction, of financing, of securing material, of combating opposition, of securing favorable legislation were tremendous, and would early have staggered less resourceful or less energetic men. The route chosen by Judah and supported by him against all subsequent attack followed,
in the main, the old immigrant road from Sacramento to Donner Pass by way of Auburn, Clipper Cap, and Colfax, or Illinois Town, as it was then called. Footnote. Judah gave at one time 30 reasons for his choice of routes. From the summit of the mountains, the line descended along the general course of the Truckee River to the Nevada Plains. A few miles beyond Colfax lay Dutch Flat, from which Judah
proposed to build a wagon road to Carson Valley, thus diverting the Nevada traffic to the Central Pacific, until the railroad could be completed to the California boundary. The selection of this route led to one of the first and most violent attacks on the Central Pacific. Rival lines, such as the San Francisco and Washoe and the Sacramento Valley, whose history cannot be traced here, joined with an already outraged San Francisco and Placerville public to denounce the whole
project. The road was dubbed the Dutch Flat Fraud and its builders were accused of securing government subsidies for a line which they had no intention of completing across the mountains. Whether or not there was truth in these charges, the fact remains that the Central's wagon road brought to it most of the Nevada trade and enabled it to pay very large returns while still under process of construction. Rival opposition was the least of the Central's
difficulties. The Sierra Nevadas opposed a barrier nearly 150 miles wide, rising at times to an elevation of 7,000 feet. To overcome this, an army of workmen and teams had to be organized, sheltered, fed, and paid. An incalculable amount of grading, filling, trestle building, cutting, and tunneling, much of the way through solid rock, had to be accomplished. Mile upon mile of snow sheds had also to be built in the higher altitudes to protect the track in the winter,
so that material could later go forward for use of construction gangs hurrying the work across Nevada. The responsibility for this phase of the work fell upon Charles Crocker, who as head of the Charles Crocker Construction Company, afterward superseded by the Contract and Finance Company, was in full charge of building operations. In reality, the companies just mentioned were only the Big Four and Edwin B. Crocker operating under another name, for Huntington and his
associates saw the advisability from many standpoints of keeping the roads construction in their own hands, as well as the financial advantages to be gained from such an arrangement. But, unlike the Credit Mobile A, which served the chief stockholders of the Union Pacific in similar capacity, the construction companies organized by the California Builders, whether in connection with the Central Pacific or any of their other roads, never revealed the details of
costs and profits to inquisitive congressional committees. Next to Huntington, Charles Crocker had the heaviest responsibility of the four. Upon his shoulders fell a physical burden of the undertaking. The best testimony to his ability is that, along with the chief engineer, Montague, who succeeded Judah upon the latter's death, and Strobridge, who served as superintendent of construction, he carried the road over every difficulty mountain desert and man could place
in its way. When white labor failed or became difficult to handle, he brought in thousands of Chinese coolies and used these Crocker's pets, as they were called, without mercy to himself or them. Even the winter snows were not allowed to check his impetuous ambition. While Crocker was carrying forward the construction work, Stanford, aided by Hopkins and an occasional visit from Huntington, was adroitly handling the state and local legislation necessary
to secure the subsidies mentioned in a previous paragraph. In the East, meanwhile, Huntington gave himself to three great tasks, any one of which was beyond ordinary capacity. The first was to dispose of enough Central Pacific stock and bonds to finance operations, or, failing that, to borrow sufficient money on the personal security of himself and his associates to keep the road from lagging. His genius along this line was so marked that even in the stress of the Civil
War and its aftermath, he enabled the road to carry a floating debt of seven million dollars, for none of which it paid more than seven percent per annum, though the Union Pacific was charged a much higher premium and the common interest rates in California ranged from two to three percent per month. Footnote. At one time, the single house of William E. Dodge and Company held the personal notes of Huntington and his associates for three million two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars, so confident were the New York bankers of Huntington's ability to meet the Central's obligations in footnote. Besides financing the road, Huntington had also to keep it supplied with material. This meant the purchase of every foot of rail used in the track, of locomotives, of passenger coaches, of flat cars, spikes, powder, shovels, and all other implements from Eastern manufacturers, since California at that time had nothing in the way of steel and iron
foundries, and the shipment of this material either around the horn or across Panama. This was an especially difficult task while the war lasted. The government had prior right to most of the supplies required by the railroad, and even when cargoes could be secured, ships were not easily found. During the war, freight rates increased from eighteen to forty-five dollars a ton. Marine insurance, owing to the menace of Southern privateersmen, rose from two and one half
to ten percent. Railroad iron trebled in value. Locomotives, rolling stock, everything, in fact, the Central Pacific required, had to be bought at increased prices. Even after the war, the rivalry of the Union Pacific in the market for the same material kept up the cost of rails and locomotives and made it hard to fill orders. Yet, Huntington's genius overcame these difficulties and kept a steady stream of supplies flowing from the Atlantic seaboard to the construction camps in the Sierra.
The following is a typical example of the methods by which Huntington accomplished his ends. In 1866, he succeeded in stealing a march on the Union Pacific in the purchase of 66,000 tons of rails, which the latter road badly needed, and at the same time defeated a threatened combine on the part of the steel mills to increase the price. To get these rails to California required a large number of vessels, so Huntington went to a gentleman named E. B. Sutton to charter the
necessary bottoms. The details of this interview are best given in Huntington's own words. Quote, I said, well, I want to get a good ship, a good steady ship, safe. I said, you go out and run around, give me a list of what you can find. He came in with three or four. He said, you can have this one for so much and this one for so much. Such a price, said I, it is too high. I can't take one of these ships. I am in no hurry, said I, the ships are coming in all along.
Well, he came back. He went out three times and he came back with 23 ships. I got them all down whilst talking. Well, said I, Sutton, I will take them. Take them, said he, take what? Said I, I will take those ships if they are A1. Well, he said, I can't let you have them. I thought you wanted only one. He said, I will have to have two or three of them myself. Said I, not of these you won't. Well, those ships took about 45,000 tons
of rails. Mr. Sutton told me afterward, Huntington, you would have had to pay $10 per ton, at least, more if I had known you wanted all those ships. That would have been $450,000. Huntington's third task in the East lay in the field of politics. At this time, or a little later, the Central Pacific maintained an agent in Washington to whom they paid a salary of $20,000 and allowed an unaudited expense account of twice that amount.
But this man was only a subordinate. Huntington himself was the real director of railroad affairs in Washington. What he accomplished in this capacity was more important from the standpoint of the Central Pacific than any of his other work. Aside from the subsidies earlier granted by Congress, one of the measures of most advantage to the California railroad was passed in 1866. By the Act of 1864, the eastern limit of the Central Pacific had been fixed 150 miles east
of the California-Nevada boundary. The territory beyond that line belonged exclusively to the Union Pacific. The bill, indeed, went even farther and permitted the Union Pacific to continue its operations westward if it reached the junction point ahead of the Central Pacific. This clause was, of course, obnoxious to the backers of the Central, who were secretly determined to carry their line entirely across Nevada into Utah and enter Salt Lake City ahead of the Union Pacific.
To object to this feature of the bill at the time, however, might have defeated the entire measure with its large subsidies from the federal government. Consequently, Huntington accepted the objectionable provision and bided his time until, by the enactment of the bill in 1866, he succeeded in releasing the Central from its limitations and in obtaining the desired right to build eastward until a junction should be made with the Union Pacific.
The measure was a perfectly legitimate piece of legislation and deserved the large support which it received in Congress, but Huntington had taken no chances of its defeat by rival lobbyists. In later years, in his own brusque way, he told the following incident relative to the passage of the measure. A congressman by the name of Alley from Massachusetts when the bill passed came over to me. He says, Huntington, he says, there must have been great corruption,
great money used, or you could not have passed that bill. Well, I said to him, Mr. Alley, I am surprised to hear you talk in that way of your associates here. I am very much surprised, but I will be frank and tell you that I brought over half a million dollars to use every dollar of it if necessary to pass this bill. I got a large majority of them, I knew, that was in favor of it without the use of one dollar. We still had our means and wanted
to get every vote, so I went into the gallery for votes, one hand after another. I sat right there, I examined the face of every man, and I am a good judge of faces. I examined them carefully through my glass. I didn't see but one man I thought would sell his vote, and you know devilish well I didn't try that. So I didn't use one dollar. Of course, Huntington's ability did not always secure the enactment of favorable measures
or prevent the passage of bills opposed to the Central's interest. One act, for example, was carried through Congress fixing the gauge of the road at four feet, eight and one half inches, after Huntington had convinced Lincoln that five feet was the proper width, and had secured the issuance of an executive order to that effect. But even in this case, Huntington turned defeat to his advantage and drove a satisfactory bargain with his
opponents on the issue. Footnote. By a presidential decree of January 12, 1864, the western base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains was officially fixed where the line of the Central Pacific crosses Arcade Creek in the Sacramento Valley. Opponents of the railroad pointed out that this decree actually moved the mountains 20 miles west of their true location, across a comparatively level plain, thus increasing
the government's loan to the road from $16,000 a mile to $48,000 a mile for the 20 miles involved. In footnote. With the passage of the bill permitting the Central to enter Union Pacific Territory east of California, the two rivals began a headlong race unique in railroad history. In this contest, the Central was contending for a double prize. Every mile a track laid east of the Sierras brought the government subsidy of 20 sections of land
and a credit of $32,000. Equally important was the revenue to be derived from the Utah traffic, if Salt Lake could be reached before the Union Pacific built so far westward as to shut its rival away from the Mormon settlements. Huntington, indeed, had set a much farther goal for the Central Pacific's eastern terminus, and later blamed the apathy and opposition of San Francisco for holding the road back, when with proper support in California, it might have
reached the Green River and controlled the traffic of all Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho. Had this object been realized, one might also add that California Road would have been relieved from that thorn in the flesh, the Oregon short line, and the building of the Southern Pacific to New Orleans and of the San Francisco-Portland line might have been delayed for many years. The stirring details of the race between the Union and Central Pacific, the one building
eastward across the Nevada and Utah deserts, the other progressing westward from the Black Hills, cannot be told here at length. On the one side was a corporation backed by almost limitless resources, well entrenched in federal politics, transporting its material from a comparatively near base of supplies over its own line, and relying pretty largely upon Irish labor for construction purposes. On the other side were four men, by this time well enough supplied with funds,
skillful as their rivals in the use of political machinery, compelled, however, to ship supplies by long sea voyages, using Chinese coulis by the thousand for grading, track laying, and the innumerable tasks of railroad building, maintaining a secret watch over their rivals' affairs, hoodwinking the agents he sent out, stripping the markets wherever possible of material to force the Union's construction crews to stand idle, and obtaining government bonds for
60 miles of track to which their opponents laid claim. Around these elements centered the greatest race in the history of railroad construction. The two roads met at Promontory Point in Utah, an insignificant place some 53 miles west of Ogden. Here on the 10th of May 1869, in the presence of a thousand spectators, the two tracks were joined. Silver and gold spikes were driven in a silver-bound tie of California laurel. Speeches were made, an engine from the east touched
front with an engine from the west, and the old, old dream of linking the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans became a reality. Quote, Sir, said the telegram sent by the participating officials of the two roads to President Grant, we have the honor to report that the last rail is laid, the last spike is driven. The Pacific Railroad is finished. End quote. Finished, too, for California was much that had made her previous history. Slow-going ox wagons
no longer crossed the Sierra. The mining counties dwindled in population while the agricultural regions and the cities took on increasing life. Great land grants of early days were gradually broken up to make room for a rapidly enlarged population. The cattle barren retired to the foothills and out-of-the-way valleys to make way for grain fields, orchards, and vineyards. The San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys began to fulfill the old prophecies that one day
they would become the Granary of the Pacific. California products made their appearance in eastern markets, and eastern tourists daily enriched the California merchants. Travel became a source of unity and culture. Thousands of persons, long stranded on the coast because of the difficult overland journey, rushed eagerly back to their old homes in the states, and after a brief stay rushed even more eagerly back to the west, tenfold more enthusiastic
for California than ever they had been before. Real estate booms grew to be familiar phenomena. Labor problems thrust themselves upon the public notice. The state government failed more and more to meet the demands of its citizens. Society and business became more complex. On every side, new forces, social, economic, and political, marked the development of a new day. In this period of transition, the builders of the Central Pacific played a foremost part. For
their celebration at promontory point was for them the beginning rather than the end of a great task. The line from Sacramento to Ogden was only a single link in a great system yet to be constructed. By means of the Western Pacific, a line running from Sacramento to San Jose, with a branch from Niles to San Francisco Bay, known as the San Francisco-Oakland and Alameda Railroad, the Central had an outlet to Tidewater. Later, the road got control of most of the Oakland
waterfront and sought to occupy Yerba Buena Island. Deeming it necessary to control every avenue of approach to the city of San Francisco, the Central next absorbed the California Pacific, which ran from Sacramento to Viejo and carried it on to Benicia, where ferry connections were established with Port Costa, thus forestalling any competition from that approach to San Francisco. Similarly, the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad, which had been built down the
peninsula largely through subsidies provided by the two cities whose name it bore, passed under control of the Central directors and completed the desired monopoly of San Francisco trade. The process was aided by a grant from the state legislature of 60 acres of land for terminal facilities on the shore of Mission Bay. While these local developments were in progress, the Central Pacific found itself threatened in two dangerous quarters. The Union
Pacific, stopped at Ogden by the Central from proceeding to California, sought an outlet to the Pacific by way of Portland. The building of the Oregon short line thus threatened to divert from the Central most of the Oriental trade. By running a line of steamers from Portland to San Francisco, a still more serious menace, the Union Pacific might even take over a large share of the California traffic to the East, unless the Central in some way could protect itself.
But this was not the most serious menace the California Railroad had to face. Before the Civil War, the best judgment of the country, as shown in a previous chapter, favored the extreme southern route for the Pacific Railroad. The proposed line along the 35th parallel was also highly recommended. The war checked, but did not kill the interest in these two routes, and before the Central Pacific itself was well established, other companies were
at work to build into California along both of these more southerly routes. Should a road reach the Pacific over either route, it meant incalculable loss to the Central, because the latter's long haul across the Sierra, with the heavy grades and winding track, made competition with the southern road impossible on anything like equal terms. But the men who had shown sufficient metal to construct the Central Pacific were not now likely to see it overwhelmed by more recent rivals.
And with characteristic energy, they set to work to master the situation. The menace of the Oregon short line was met by the construction of a road from San Francisco to Portland through the Sacramento Valley. This line, originally called the Oregon-California Railroad, followed the general course of the Williamson Abbott Survey through northern California and southern Oregon. Most of the road was built by the contract and finance company of
Central Pacific fame, and as in the case of the Central, the line was largely financed by government subsidies of land and bonds. It was completed to Ashland, Oregon, the terminus of the Portland Division in 1887. Some years before the Oregon connection was established, moreover, the Central builders had completed a much more comprehensive and daring program in the South. Here, their ambition was threefold. To monopolize the transportation business of Central and Southern
California, where agricultural development foretold enormous freights, to close the eastern border of the state to rival lines, or failing this to keep them south of the Tehachapi and to secure for themselves a three-road to the east, independent of the Union Pacific and without the handicap of the Sierra. Incidentally, too, the prospect of acquiring some tens of thousands of acres of rich agricultural land was not altogether without its weight. To realize these ambitions
required the construction of an entire railroad system. One of the first measures was to make sure of the San Joaquin Valley. This was done by absorbing a number of independent lines and constructing sufficient mileage to give a through track from Lathrop on the Central Pacific to a place known as Goshen in the northwestern corner of Tulare County. By the time this was done, a new road, which had made an insignificant beginning in 1865, began to attract a great deal
of public interest through the coast counties south of San Francisco. This was the Southern Pacific Railroad Company of California. And like the mustard seed mentioned in the scriptures, from being one of the least of California roads, it was soon destined to become the greatest. The original charter of the Southern Pacific called for a road along the coast following pretty closely Park Survey from San Jose to San Diego. Hence the line was to run to the Colorado,
where a junction was planned with the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, which Congress had authorized along the line of the 35th parallel. By the acquisition of the San Francisco-San Jose Railroad, which by this time had reached Gilroy and the Salinas Valley, and by showing an apparent intention of continuing down the coast in keeping with the provisions of its charter, the Southern Pacific for a time appeared in the guise of a formidable rival to the Central's
monopoly. This hope was short lived. As early as 1867, the Southern Pacific had announced a change from its proposed route down the coast to a line across the mountains into the San Joaquin and onto the Colorado by way of the Tehachapi. This radical departure from the original plan, though greeted with strong opposition from many quarters, especially in the coast counties most seriously affected, was approved by Congress. The latter body also granted the Southern Pacific
the privilege of building a branch from its proposed Tehachapi-Colorado line to Los Angeles, and of continuing this by way of the San Gorgonio Pass to Fort Yuma. Two short extensions of its line from Gilroy, the one running to Soledad in Monterey County and the other to Tres Pinos in Benito County, put the Southern Pacific in a position to block the approach of any rival coming up from the south along the coast. As its congressional grant gave
it the right of connecting at Needles and Yuma with the two throughroads from the east, it was only necessary for the Central and Southern Pacific to unite to complete the railroad monopoly of California. By 1871, when the Contract and Finance Company undertook the construction of the Southern Pacific line from Gilroy to Fort Mojave, it was clearly understood that this merger had taken place and that Stanford and Company, as the Big Four were generally spoken
of in California, had effectively killed all hopes of the Southern Pacific standing out as an independent road. Beginning at Goshen, where the Central Pacific stopped, the Southern Pacific's tracks were laid through Williamson's favorite pass, the Tahachapi, and thence extended to the Colorado. Control of one of the Southern Transcontinental routes was thus assured, so far as an entrance into California was concerned. But the real test was yet to come.
A road known as the Texas Pacific was already under construction westward from New Orleans along the 32nd parallel. To meet this road at Yuma was not sufficient. The Southern Pacific must be carried on through Arizona and Texas to become a transcontinental road in its own right. The fulfillment of this ambition was largely due to Huntington's determination, for his companions regarded the undertaking with apprehension and gave it something less
than wholehearted support. Opposed to Huntington was Thomas A. Scott to the Texas Pacific. Who was seeking to extend his own road to the California line. To succeed in this, he must obtain government aid in the form of land grants and federal bonds. Huntington used all the skill he could muster to defeat this grant, and had droidly showed up Scott's previous record, when the latter sought to win the support of Congress on the ground that he was a public
benefactor. To embarrass his rival further, Huntington even offered to build a Southern Pacific without federal subsidy of any kind. Footnote. Huntington, however, countered upon substantial subsidies from the legislatures of the territories through which the road ran. In these and in other ways, he successfully defeated Scott's plans for the Texas Pacific and was able to carry out the program for his own line. While Huntington was
thus engaged in checkmating Scott in Washington, the rails of the Southern Pacific, in the face of a government order to the contrary, were hurried through to the Yuma Indian Reservation and over the Colorado. Work was then rushed across Arizona and New Mexico to El Paso. The line was finally built, almost to the Louisiana boundary, where connection was made with a road running into New Orleans, which the Southern Pacific directors acquired
from the Morgan interests. Thus, the California railroad at last reached its long coveted outlet to the Gulf and made direct connection with Eastern markets. From the California boundary to New Orleans, however, the line was still known by various names and operated nominally by as many separate corporations. To simplify the management and bring all the roads, both within the state and beyond its boundaries under one head, Huntington and his associates afterwards formed
a corporation known as the Southern Pacific Company. This was chartered by the state of Kentucky in 1884 and by stock ownership and lease has since controlled the combined properties of the Central and Southern Pacific Railroad companies. This chapter is shown in sufficient detail how four surprisingly able men, Huntington, Stanford, Crocker, and Hopkins, built the first great railroad systems of the state. It is a truism to say that the railroads did more than any other
human factor for the economic development of California. Yet, for various reasons, the generation that witnessed the construction of the Central and Southern Pacific Railroads, according to the founders of those great enterprises, more of censure than of admiration. The reasons for this unfavorable attitude will appear in part in the following chapters. End of chapter 26
