Born: September 16, 1822 in Troy, New York
Died: 1888 in Monterey, California
When he was fourteen, Charles Crocker moved to a farm in Iowa where he began working on several farms, a sawmill and an iron forge.
Crocker led a party of 49ers overland to California, arriving in 1850. After two years of little return, he opened a dry goods shop in Sacramento.
Arrived on the
S.S. Pacific, March 7, 1853
Charles and Mrs. Crocker left New York in the steamship Star of the West for San Juan where they boarded the Pacific for San Francisco.By 1854, he was one of the wealthiest men in Sacramento and had developed business relationships with Mark Hopkins, Collis Huntington and Leland Stanford. Together they were known as "The Big Four," and he joined them in developing the Central Pacific Railroad."
He was a dry goods merchant, construction chief, and when the Southern Pacific Railroad was purchased by teh Central Pacific Railroad in 1871, it was reconstituted around the new owners and he was elected preisdent.
He was also president of the Contract and Finance Company, the construction firm of the Central Pacific.
Crocker hired thousands of Chinese laborers to help him build his Central Pacific Railroad's part of the Transcontinental Railroad.
(Details corrected on October 8, 2005 with notes from Norman E. Tutorow, Ph.D., author of The Governor: The Life and Legacy of Leland Stanford, Arthur H. Clark Co., 2004, Spokane.)
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