Nostalgia & History > Central Pacific Railroad

I am reading the trilogy of books "The Union Pacific" by Maury Klein, probably the definitive "biography" of that corporation. Anyone have suggestions on a good read of the origins and building of the Central Pacific?

"Empire Express" by David Haward Bain" covers both sides of the Golden Spike.

I will second Empire Express as the most meticulously researched book out there.

It's a little dry, but if you're into the nuts and bolts it gives you a very good idea of how things went backed up by numbers, as well as some nice historical context along the way. I found it fascinating.

One takeaway is that compared to the machinations of Thomas Durant & Co., the CP comes out looking like angels. They too were working within the system they were given, but were more focused on the extremely difficult task of building over the sierras which they had to do immediately, while Durant wasted months creating intentional false starts in order to profit from his real estate speculation schemes.

-M

Mike Massee
Tehachapi, CA
Photography, Railroading and more..

I just finished The Big Four by Oscar Lewis- for sheer readability it can't be beat. It has an interesting structure, building up the story through the separate threads of Judah, Crocker, Hopkins, Stanford, Huntington and Colton. It is by no means a puff peace- Lewis is highly critical of the Central / Southern Pacific monopoly, but the accomplishment is not shied away from either. The "Big Four" are clearly portrayed as individuals- I'll never mix them up after reading the book. Hopkins is quite admirable, Crocker surprisingly likeable. Stanford not what I expected and Huntington absolutely fascinating. Its a great book.