The landscape of the Bay Area lent itself nicely to exploitation by the Big Four. The illustrious golden spike can be viewed today at the Stanford University Art Museum. On May 10, 1869, the fabled golden spike was driven into the final tie at Promontory, Utah and the United States eastern and western coasts were summarily linked.

Unfortunately for the Union, the railroad wasn't complete until long after the Civil War had ended. In addition, the Big Four created their own construction company and charged the United States inflated amounts to turn a healthy profit while they advanced their operations. The federal government had a vested interest in the railroad and it generously subsidized the Central Pacific Railroad, aiming to get its slice of the Golden pie to help fund its war against the South. The plan was for the two companies to build toward each other, from Omaha and Sacramento respectively, until they met. In 1862, Congress approved the Pacific Railroad Act which awarded government contracts to two companies-Union Pacific and Central Pacific. The four merchants eventually dubbed themselves The Big Four and their many-tentacled empire of railroads and freight lines was renamed Southern Pacific Railroad in 1884, although its detractors preferred to call it the Octopus. They had effectively laid the groundwork to establish one of the most comprehensive and oppressive monopolies in American history.

When the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, the four investors laughed all the way to the bank.

Huntington, Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker-had to wait a few years for the pay-off on their seed money for Central Pacific. The four investors-Leland Stanford, Collis P. At the time, the investment was a considerable gamble on something few people thought likely to pay off any time soon. In 1859, Theodore Judah convinced four relatively unknown merchants in Sacramento to invest in his proposed railroad to run from the gold mines through the treacherous Sierra foothills toward the eastern seaboard of America. May 9, 1869: Crowds celebrate completion of Transcontinental Railroad at Montgomery and Washington Streets.

Monopoly tycoon term definition