Massachusetts newspaper editor Samuel Bowles observed the peculiar representatives of American culture taking root in North Platte and christened what he saw Hell on Wheels.
Nitroglycerin was first synthesized in 1864 by chemist Ascanio Sobrero, who destroyed his notes for fear of the damage his highly unstable discovery might cause.
Collis Huntington had a preternatural sense for buying and selling. He came to California in 1849 at news of gold. He found success vending supplies to men chasing their fortunes in icy streams. Despite a rough start, he established himself in Sacramento by the turn of the decade.
In 1863 the burgeoning railroad company, in which younger brother Charles Crocker had invested, recruited Edwin Bryant Crocker as its attorney. When Charles resigned his position on the Central Pacific board to oversee construction, E. B. took his place.
In 1859 young engineer Grenville Dodge met Abraham Lincoln by chance in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Dodge assured the future president that the Platte Valley would one day be the route of the Pacific Railroad. Seven years later he would be the chief engineer of that project.
Slow to speak, a deliberate thinker, Stanford was characterized by a plodding nature that repeatedly vexed his railroad partners. However, he relished public life, and it was in this capacity that he best served the Central Pacific.
Earnestness and frugality combined with a slight gray beard to earn Hopkins the nickname "Uncle Mark." But the unthreatening exterior disguised a resolute mind.Â
Theodore Judah and the American railroad matured together. In 1854 Judah found himself invited to a New York meeting. Returning home, he informed his wife, "Anna, I am going to California to be the pioneering railroad engineer of the Pacific coast."
Thomas Durant was a born manipulator. Educated in medicine, Durant kept the honorific "Doctor" in front of his name but abandoned the pursuit for business, the only enterprise that could satiate his rapacious appetite for profit.
