Gallery Guide | The Melancholy Museum

Leland Stanford Sr. and
the Central Pacific Railroad
MITCH THERIEAU
PhD candidate, Modern Thought and Literature
THE STORY OF THE CENTRAL PACIFIC RAILROAD IN THE 1860S BEGINS
and ends with gold. Leland Stanford Sr. and Collis Huntington, who
directed the railroad in its early years alongside Charles Crocker and
Mark Hopkins, made their first fortunes in Sacramento selling tools to
the prospectors who flocked to California in the wake of the 1849 Gold
Rush. This prospect of wealth attracted Theodore Judah, a New York
railroad engineer fixated on the notion of building a transcontinental
railroad. After a few failed efforts to fundraise, Judah persuaded Leland Sr.
and his three associates to go into business with him. On June 28, 1861,
on the strength of the associates’ capital and Judah’s almost evangelical
enthusiasm, the Central Pacific was incorporated. The Pacific Railroad
Acts of 1862 and 1864 financially supported the completion of roughly
half of the transcontinental railroad, with the other half to be undertaken
by the newly formed Union Pacific.
In the middle of his efforts to get the Central Pacific off the ground,
Thomas Hill (1829–1908), The Driving of the Last Spike, 1881.
California State Railroad Museum
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Alfred A. Hart (1816-1906), The Last Rail Is Laid. Scene at Promontory
Point, May 10, 1869, 1869. Stanford University Archives
Leland Sr. was elected governor of California. A known railroad
proponent, he rarely missed an opportunity to mention the benefits that
long-distance rail travel would bring to the state. Even in his inaugural
address, he emphasized that a transcontinental railroad would make
it easier for California to trade with Nevada, where significant gold
and silver deposits had been discovered. Of course, given his business
arrangements, such a railroad would bring significant monetary gain
to Leland Sr., too. Still, this mixing of the railroad, personal profit, and
political interests cut both ways, as he used his authority as governor
to raise funds for the Central Pacific. Gold helped foment the desire
that gave birth to the Central Pacific, and gold had a hand in shaping
its route across the West; thus, it was only appropriate that gold would
commemorate its completion.
On May 10, 1869, near Promontory, Utah, after more than six years
of brutal exploitation and unfathomable misery on the part of Chinese
migrant workers in particular, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific
were joined with a Golden Spike. Fittingly, it was Leland Sr. who gently
tapped this spike into a tie made of California laurel. Then the Golden
Spike was quickly un-driven, and an undocumented railroad worker
drove in the iron spike that would supposedly serve as the real final link
between East and West. The Golden Spike became part of the room of
Stanford memorabilia installed in 1893, the year of Leland Sr.’s death,
reminding visitors of the origins of the wealth that built this university.
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