Theodore Dehone Judah

Theodore Dehone Judah (1826-1863): Transcontinental Railway

Judah was an American railroad and civil engineer involved in the original promotion, establishment and design of the first trans-continental railroad. His railroad career began in the Northeast, but following the “westward ho” lure, he was hired as chief engineer for the Sacramento Valley Railroad, the first railroad built west of the Mississippi. During the 1850s he was known as “Crazy Judah” for his idea to build a railroad over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but he found investors for what became the Central Pacific Railroad. As chief engineer, he performed much of the land survey work to determine the best route over the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He was instrumental in securing a Congressional passage for support of the proposed railroad route. The 1862 Pacific Railroad Act authorized the building and partial funding of the transcontinental railroad which was completed in 1869. Judah died of yellow fever contracted while traversing the Isthmus of Panama during a ship voyage to New York.

Edwin L. Sabin (1870-1952). Building the Pacific Railway; the Construction-story of America's First Iron Thoroughfare between the Missouri River and California, from the Inception of the Great Idea to the Day, May 10, 1869, when the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Joined Tracks at Promotory Point, Utah, to Form the Nation's Transcontinental. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1919.