On June 28, 1861, the Central Pacific Railroad was incorporated by Theodore Judah and four Sacramento businessmen known as “The Associates.” Also known as the “Big Four,” The Associates were Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, Collis P. Huntington, and Charles Crocker. Theodore Judah, who previously worked for the Sacramento Valley Railroad and publisher of “A Practical Plan for Building the Pacific Railroad,” was the Chief Engineer of the company. Judah was sent to Washington DC to lobby for a transcontinental railroad. On July 1, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act, and the Central Pacific was chartered by Congress to build the western section of the railroad. Railroad construction of the eastward bound Central Pacific began at the foot of K Street in Sacramento, California on January 8, 1863 with a ceremony led by then-Governor Leland Stanford. Theodore Judah’s surveys and engineering plans helped make the railroad possible, although he did not live to see th...