biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1822–88)
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| biography:
| Railroad builder and businessman, born in Troy, New York, USA. His family moved to Indiana (1836), where he established an iron forge (1845). He later sold the business and went to California to take up gold mining. He soon realized that the real money lay in selling goods, and the store he opened in Sacramento (1852) made him rich within a few years. By 1860 he was elected to the state legislature. Joining forces with Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford, and C P Huntington, he formed the Central Pacific Railroad and personally supervised its construction from California across the Sierra Nevada to its junction with the Union Pacific in Utah (1863–9). In 1871 he assumed the presidency of the Southern Pacific Railroad, merging it with the Central Pacific in 1884. He was also active in banking, real estate, irrigation, and other projects. |
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