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: -Four men in particular created monopolies and gained vast wealth during the Gilded Age: JP Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie.

Detailed explanation-3: -From the beginning, then, the building of the transcontinental railroad was set up in terms of a competition between the two companies. In the West, the Central Pacific would be dominated by the “Big Four”–Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington and Mark Hopkins.

Detailed explanation-4: -Stanford migrated to California in 1852, joining his brothers in their mercantile business. In 1861 he co-founded and became president of the Central Pacific Railroad.