USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Central Pacific Railroad, American railroad company founded in 1861 by a group of California merchants known later as the “Big Four” (Collis P. Huntington, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker); they are best remembered for having built part of the first American transcontinental rail line.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete the western part of the “First transcontinental railroad” in North America.

Detailed explanation-3: -The rail line, also called the Great Transcontinental Railroad and later the “Overland Route, ” was predominantly built by the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California (CPRR) and Union Pacific (with some contribution by the Western Pacific Railroad Company) over public lands provided by extensive US land grants.

Detailed explanation-4: -Four northern California businessmen formed the Central Pacific Railroad: Leland Stanford, (1824–1893), President; Collis Potter Huntington, (1821–1900), Vice President; Mark Hopkins, (1813–1878), Treasurer; Charles Crocker, (1822–1888), Construction Supervisor.

Detailed explanation-5: -The Pacific Railroad Act stipulated that the Central Pacific Railroad Company would start building in Sacramento and continue east across the Sierra Nevada, while a second company, the Union Pacific Railroad, would build westward from the Missouri River, near the Iowa-Nebraska border.