# @sachistorymuseum on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DRyG3HjgSE5
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/37550058-sachistorymuseum-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/1f1233902a.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-12-03T01:30:00.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Sacramento History Museum (@sachistorymuseum) — https://gondola.cc/sachistorymuseum

## Caption

On December 2, 1865, the Southern Pacific Railroad Company of California was incorporated in San Francisco. The company’s first formal project was the construction of a rail line from San Francisco to San Diego. Timothy Phelps served as the first president of the Southern Pacific until 1868 when the company was purchased by a group of businessmen known as “The Associates,” better known in history as the Big Four: Collis Huntington, Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, and Mark Hopkins. 

The Associates founded the Central Pacific Railroad in 1861 and the company merged with Southern Pacific in the early 1870s. The Central Pacific-Southern Pacific Railroad played a key role in not only the development of railroad lines in California, but also across the United States, the obvious being the first Transcontinental Railroad completed on May 10, 1869. By 1877, the Southern Pacific controlled 85 percent of railroad traffic in California and it had grown over the years as one of the major freight companies in the United States. In 1996, the Southern Pacific merged with the Union Pacific.

Snippet view of the Southern Pacific Railyards and Depot in 1887 from “A Bird’s Eye View of Sacramento in 1887” by W.W. Elliott & Company published by the Sacramento Daily Record Union, courtesy of the Library of Congress. Note the building with the “3” above it is the City Hall and Waterworks building. The Sacramento History Museum is housed in a reconstruction of that building. The railyards still stand today north of the Amtrak station. The bridge in the bottom left was later replaced in 1911 with the current I Street Bridge. 

#TodayInHistory #OnThisDay #railroadhistory #sacramento #oldsacramento #sachistorymuseum

## Stats

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## Tags

oldsacramento, sacramento, todayinhistory, onthisday, railroadhistory, sachistorymuseum

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