CALIFORNIA BRIEF HISTORY 

California Economic Development, 1850-1900

California Railroads

The first railroad within the state, a 35-km (22-mile) line between Sacramento and Folsom, was completed in 1855. Two railroad companies built the first transcontinental railroad: The Union Pacific Railway laid tracks west from Omaha, Nebraska, and the Central Pacific Railroad, under the leadership of wealthy Sacramento businessmen Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Collis P. Huntington, and Mark Hopkins, laid track east from Sacramento. The two lines were joined at Promontory, near Ogden, Utah, on May 10, 1869. In 1876 the Central Pacific was extended southward, reaching Los Angeles. The southern portion of this line was called the Southern Pacific Railroad. Early in the 1880s the Southern Pacific linked California with New Orleans.

   

Railroads had originally promised to stimulate the California economy and to attract new settlers to the state. Although economic growth did increase and settlers did arrive, especially in southern California, economic depression struck the nation in the 1870s, and few of the settlers who came could afford to begin farming immediately. Over time, however, the railroads encouraged the rapid growth of cities in California and made it easy and relatively inexpensive to ship agricultural products across the country.