Big Four (Central Pacific Railroad)

rdf:langString Big Four (Central Pacific Railroad)

rdf:langString "The Big Four" was the name popularly given to the famous and influential businessmen, philanthropists and railroad tycoons who funded the Central Pacific Railroad, (C.P.R.R.), which formed the western portion through the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains of the First Transcontinental Railroad in the United States, built from the mid-continent at the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean during the middle and late 1860s. Composed of Leland Stanford (1824–1893), Collis Potter Huntington (1821–1900), Mark Hopkins Jr. (1813–1878), and Charles Crocker (1822–1888), the four themselves, however, personally preferred to be known as "The Associates." They enriched themselves utilizing tax money and land grants, while heavily influencing the State legislature from within the Republican party (Stanford was governor of California when the first of the Pacific Railroad Acts was passed), and through monopolizing tactics. Contemporary critics claimed they were the greatest swindlers in U.S. history.