Central Pacific Railroad, Americanrailroad company founded in 1861 by a group ofCaliforniamerchants known later as the “Big Four” (Collis P. Huntington,Leland Stanford,Mark Hopkins, andCharles Crocker); they are best remembered for having built part of the first Americantranscontinental rail line. The line was first conceived and surveyed by an engineer,Theodore Dehone Judah, who obtained the financial backing of the California group and won federal support in the form of thePacific Railway Act (1862), which provided land grants and subsidies to the Central Pacific andUnion Pacific. Each company was granted financial support from government bonds and awarded sizable parcels of land along the entire length of their route as an added incentive.

Huntington represented the company in the East, handling the financing and purchasing and acting as political lobbyist. Crocker was in charge of construction. Stanford, who was governor of California in 1862–63, saw to the company’s financial and political interests in the West. The associates subscribed some of their own funds initially, but most of the capital for the actual construction came from public funds and grants. All four men became enormously wealthy. (Stanford went on to foundStanford University.)

The Central Pacific began laying track eastward fromSacramento, California, in 1863, and the Union Pacific started westward fromOmaha, Nebraska, two years later. To meet its manpower needs, the Central Pacific hired thousands of Chinese labourers, including many recruited from farms in Canton. The crew had theformidable task of laying the track that crossed the ruggedSierra Nevada mountain range, blasting nine tunnels to accomplish this. The crew of the Union Pacific, which was composed largely of Irish immigrants and Civil War veterans, had to contend with Indian attacks and theRocky Mountains. On May 10, 1869, after completing 1,800 miles (2,900 km) of new track, the two rail lines met at Promontory,Utah. (SeeGolden Spike National Historic Site.)

In subsequent years feeder lines of the Central Pacific were established throughout California (some of them under the umbrella of a company called theSouthern Pacific Company of California), and already existing trackage along southern routes to Texas andNew Orleans, Louisiana, wasacquired. On March 17, 1884, a new Southern Pacific Company was incorporated (under a special Kentucky charter) to act as aholding company for the several operating railroads; the Central Pacific was leased to it until 1959, when they merged.