CA Newspapers & Writers of the 1850s The Californian and the California Star – California’s first newspapers both will eventually merge to become the Alta California Writer’s of the 1850s – Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe (“Dame Shirley”), John Rollin Ridge (“Yellow Bird”), and Mark Twain

Charles Christian Nahl, Joaquin Murieta, This dramatic painting embodies a popular stereotype of the legendary bandido, “rushing along a rough and rocky ravine” moments before his capture and decapitation

Mark Twain ( ) as a young man in San Francisco

Building the Central Pacific Railroad Early transportation – 1) paddle-wheel steamers on San Francisco Bay and on the larger rivers of the Central Valley 2) overland from St. Louis and San Francisco Credit for the specific plan that led to the building of the first transcontinental railroad belongs mainly to Theodore D. Judah, a brilliant young construction engineer

The four “Associates” - Collis P. Huntington, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, and Mark Hopkins Federal and State Support – Judah’s argument was that this project was a military necessity in a war (The Civil War) that would continue for many years Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 – signed by President Lincoln, the federal government would furnish very extensive loans and land grants to both companies, the Central Pacific & the Union Pacific

Left to right, top row: Mark Hopkins, Collis P. Huntington; center: Theodore Judah; bottom row: Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker

Railroad map of alternate sections in the Sierra Nevada. The dark squares represent lands granted by the federal government to the Central Pacific; the light squares are lands retained by the government

Actual construction of the railroad began on January 8, 1863 In spite of the support already promised by the federal government, a tangle of problems held back the early progress of construction and threatened the very life of the project A pamphlet called The Great Dutch Flat Swindle charged that the promoters were not genuinely interested in a transcontinental railroad at all

A shortage of labor replaced the shortage of cash as the most chronic problem holding back the rate of construction Chinese laborers fulfilled the building of the railroad - At the peak of its construction work, the Central Pacific employed more than 10,000 Chinese laborers, largely brought from China for the purpose To build the remainder of the road the Big Four organized a new corporation in the Contract and Finance Company

Chinese workers replacing a trestle with earth fill