Charles Crocker
Charles Crocker or Chas Crocker (* 16th September 1822 in Troy, New York ; † 14. August 1888 in Monterey, California ) was one of the railway - tycoons the United States .
He is one of the Big Four , along with Leland Stanford , Mark Hopkins and Collis P. Huntington , who built the western section of the first transcontinental rail link in the United States with the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad .
Life
Charles Crocker was born in New York in 1822. His family and moved to the west when he was 14 years old. They bought a farm in Indiana.
Crocker soon became independent, working in several factories, in a sawmill and in a forge. At the age of 23, in 1845, he founded a small, independent iron smithy. He used the money from his parents' farm as start-up capital.
Establishment of the Central Pacific Railroad
In 1861 he heard a fascinating presentation from Theodore Judah . Together with Mark Hopkins, Collis P. Huntington and Leland Stanford, he founded the Central Pacific Railroad , which was to form the western part of the first transcontinental railroad in North America. His position in the company was that of construction manager and president of Charles Crocker & Co., a subsidiary of the Central Pacific, which was founded specifically as a construction company. In 1868, while the Central Pacific Railroad was still under construction, Crocker and his three associates also took control of the Southern Pacific Railroad . To commemorate the second transcontinental railroad in the United States , a silver nail was driven into the rail in Deming, New Mexico , where the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Topeka and Santa Fe Railway meet in 1881 . The town of Deming was named after Crocker's wife, Mary Ann Deming.
family
He married Mary Ann Deming and they had four children, William Henry Crocker, George Crocker, Harriet Crocker, and Charles Frederick Crocker. His older brother Edwin B. Crocker was a lawyer during the period when Crocker invested in railroads. In 1864 Charles asked his brother Edwin to serve as his legal advisor on the Central Pacific Railroad.
In 1886, Crocker was seriously injured in a car accident in New York City from which he never fully recovered. He passed away two years later. He was buried in a mausoleum on Millionaires Row in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland , California. The massive granite structure was designed by New York architect A. Page Brown, who later designed the San Francisco Ferry Building . Charles Crocker's assets in 1888 between 300 and 400 million USD appreciated.
Web links
- Ambrose, Stephen E .: Nothing Like It In The World; The men who built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 . Simon & Schuster, 2000, ISBN 0-684-84609-8 .
- Charles Crocker in the database of Find a Grave (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Biography: Charles Crocker (1822-1888)
- ^ "People & Events: Edwin Bryant Crocker (1818-1875)
- ^ The Tombs of Charles Crocker - Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum
- ↑ For May Day, Remembering Vincent St. John - LaborStandard.org ( Memento of the original from December 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Crocker, Charles |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Crocker, Chas (nickname) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American railroad operator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 16, 1822 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Troy, New York |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 14, 1888 |
| Place of death | Monterey, California |