Steam train on Old Sacramento

The transcontinental railroad began in Sacramento. The financial backing came from four local merchants: Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford, and Charles Crocker. The engineering vision came from Theodore Judah. The labor came from China, at a cost of a 10-percent mortality rate among the workers. As great an achivement as the transcontinental railroad was at the time, one's perception of its greatness is tempered by the degree to which one identifies oneself as being Chinese.