Huntington

market, and Huntington was eminently fitted to
succeed in such an environment by virtue of his
native shrewdness, his great physical strength
and endurance, and his uninterrupted trading
experience of thirteen years.

The opportunity which was to bring wealth
and power came to Huntington in 1860 in the
shape of a proposal to build a railroad across
the Sierra Nevada Mountains as part of a trans-
continental railroad route. The author of the
project was an engineer, Theodore Dehone Ju-
dah [g.z/.]. Many residents of California had
appreciated the importance of speedy and regu-
lar communication between the Far West and
the Eastern states, but Judah differed from the
others in that he had a practicable route, a com-
pany in process of organization, and something
in the way of estimates of cost and of prospec-
tive traffic. Huntington became interested in
what Judah had to say, and discussed the matter
with other Sacramento business men. From his
point of view the scheme, quite certainly, then
appeared as only another speculation; but he
was keen enough to understand the possibilities
of profit which it contained, and bold enough to
contemplate the risk of his accumulated savings
in such an enterprise. He and Leland Stanford
[q.v.~\, together with his own partner, Mark
Hopkins, and a fourth associate, Charles Crock-
er \_q.v,,], agreed to finance an instrumental sur-
vey of Judah's suggested route, and later sent
Judah to Washington to solicit government sup-
port. Huntington himself went east in 1861, al-
though he lacked Judah's acquaintance with po-
litical circles at Washington, and probably could
not lend, in this matter, effective support.

When the government grants that made con-
struction possible were secured, Huntington and
his friends pushed the work with vigor. Appar-
ently there was some initial friction within the
enterprise between groups led respectively by
Huntington and Judah, and there was talk of
the withdrawal of one or the other interest, which
interfered with progress for a while. Judah's
death in 1863 restored unity in management by
placing the Huntington party in undisputed con-
trol. Huntington served as eastern agent during
the construction period, with full power of at-
torney from the company, borrowing money
when necessary, purchasing material, and char-
tering vessels for shipments to the West Crock-
er was in direct charge of construction, while
Stanford was president of the company, and, as
governor of California from January 1862 to
January 1864, was in a position to assure the
friendliness of the local political authorities.
The only information that we have as to the skill

Huntington

with which the eastern business was conducted
comes from Huntington himself in the form of
two or three stories that have been widely re-
peated. Huntington's acknowledged ability as a
trader, however, his financial interest in the Cen-
tral Pacific undertaking, and the continued con-
fidence which his associates reposed in him, af-
ford assurance that his task was well performed.

The Central Pacific Railroad was completed
to a junction with the Union Pacific on May 10,
1869. It is not known what gains Huntington
and his partners derived from the construction,
because the books of the company that did the
work were subsequently destroyed, but the profits
were certainly large. Following upon the open-
ing of the transcontinental route via Ogden, the
associates interested themselves in additional
construction through the southern counties of
California and, ultimately, in the establishment
of a second transcontinental line from San Fran-
cisco down the San Joaquin Valley and thence
east by way of El Paso to New Orleans. Their
motives in this can only be surmised, but it is
probable that they wished to occupy California
more fully as a protection against the possible
invasion of competing companies, as well as to
secure the benefits of a land grant offered by
Congress in 1866 for construction of a line from
San Francisco to Los Angeles and San Diego
and through the County of San Diego to the
eastern boundary of California. In 1869 the
Central Pacific had already a branch through the
San Joaquin Valley from Lathrop to Modesto
which could be used as part of the projected
route. This was later extended to Goshen. The
new construction beyond Goshen was performed
in the name of the Southern Pacific Railroad
Company, and for a time sections were leased,
as fast as they were opened, to the Central Pa-
cific Railroad for purposes of operation. In 1884
the Southern Pacific Company was organized,
and subsequently the Central Pacific and the
other California companies were leased to the
Southern Pacific Company, which now became
the controlling corporation in the entire sys-
tem. In later years the original Central Pacific
was heard of less and less, though it continued
to be perhaps the most profitable of the large
units assembled under the associates* manage-
ment

From the early seventies Huntington may be
regarded as definitely committed to a railroad
career. There is little reason to believe that this
was his original intention, but conditions had
changed greatly since his first negotiations with
Judah ten years before. He was now possessed
of a large railroad interest, and be was trobfe to

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