(Source: Tahoe Weekly, May 10, 2017)
TAHOE CITY, Calif. — Shortly before the American Civil War, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman visited northern California. He pronounced that building a railroad over the rugged Sierra Nevada and Great Basin was unfeasible and would require the work of “giants.” Hard-working crews of Chinese and Irish laborers would eventually prove otherwise, but snaking a train track through the mountains had been long considered an impossible feat — and a monumental financial gamble. California merchants Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker collectively staked their own personal fortunes to finance the Central Pacific Railroad Company (CPRR) to build the Sacramento-to-Utah section of the nation’s first transcontinental railroad.
Full story: Tahoe Weekly