Editing Theodore Judah (section)

==Career==
After studying briefly at Rensselaer,<ref name="rpi-alumni" /> Judah went to work on a number of railroads in the Northeast, including engineering for the [[Lewiston Railroad]] down the Niagara Gorge.  He was elected member of the [[American Society of Civil Engineers]] in May 1853; at that time there were fewer than 800 civil engineers in the United States.<ref name="asce2019">{{cite web |title=Golden Spike 150th Anniversary Historical Symposium |url=https://www.asce.org/history-symposia/ |website=ASCE |access-date=19 October 2019 |date=6 May 2019 |archive-date=28 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190328183645/https://www.asce.org/history-symposia/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Judah was hired in 1854 at age 28, by Colonel Charles Lincoln Wilson, as the Chief Engineer for the [[Sacramento Valley Railroad (1852–1877)|Sacramento Valley Railroad]] in California.<ref>Kneiss, Gilbert H.  ''Bonanza Railroads,'' p. 7, Stanford University Press, Stanford University, California, 1941.</ref><ref name="putnam2011">{{cite web |last1=Putnam |first1=John Rose |title=Crazy Judah and California's first railroad |url=https://mygoldrushtales.com/crazy-judah-and-california%E2%80%99s-first-railroad/ |website=mygoldrushtales.com |access-date=19 October 2019 |date=June 12, 2011}}</ref> He and his wife Anna sailed to Nicaragua, crossed over to the Pacific, and caught a steamer to San Francisco. Under his charge, Sacramento Valley became in February 1856 the first common carrier railroad built west of the Mississippi River.<ref name="putnam2011"/> Later, he was chief engineer of the [[California Central Railroad]], incorporated 1857,<ref name="noble 2010">{{cite web |last1=Noble |first1=Doug |title=The Sacramento Valley Railroad: The first railroad of the West |url=https://www.mtdemocrat.com/uncategorized/the-sacramento-valley-railroad-the-first-railroad-of-the-west/ |website=Mountain Democrat |publisher=Placerville, California |access-date=9 May 2019 |date=November 2010}}</ref> and the San Francisco and Sacramento Railroad organized in 1856.<ref name="CA1stRR 1880">{{cite web |title=CALIFORNIA'S FIRST RAILROAD. |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SDU19110813.2.23&e=-------en--20--1-byDA.rev-txt-txIN-%22california+central%22+%22california+and+oregon%22-------1 |website=cdnc.ucr.edu |publisher=Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 160, Number 44 |date=13 August 1911 |quote=based on an 1880 authority}}</ref>

===Pacific railroad surveys===
In January 1857 in Washington DC, Judah published "A practical plan for building The Pacific Railroad", in which he outlined the general plan and argued for the need to do a detailed survey of a specific selected route for the railroad, not [[Pacific Railroad Surveys|a general reconnaissance of several possible routes that had been done earlier]].<ref name="judah1857">{{cite web |last1=Judah |first1=T. D. |title=A practical plan for building The Pacific Railroad |url=http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist4/practical.html |website=Virtual museum of the City of San Francisco |publisher=H. Porkinhorn, Washington DC |access-date=21 October 2019 |date=1 January 1857}}</ref>

Nominated in the 1859 California Pacific Railroad Convention in San Francisco, Judah was sent to Washington DC to lobby in general for the [[First transcontinental railroad|Pacific Railroad]].  Congress was distracted by the trouble of pre-Civil War America and showed little interest.  He returned noting that he had to find a specific practical route and some private financial backing to do a detailed engineering survey.<ref name="RogersSpinks2019">{{cite web |last1=Rogers |first1=J. David |last2=Spinks |first2=Charles R. |title=Theodore Judah and the blazing of the first transcontinental railroad over the Sierra Nevada |url=https://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/american&military_history/THEODORE%20JUDAH%20AND%20THE%20BLAZING%20OF%20THE%20FIRST%20TRANSCONTINENTAL%20RAILROAd-Sierra%20Nevada-Rogers.pdf |website=mst.edu |publisher=ASCE Golden Spike 150th Anniversary History Symposium |access-date=21 October 2019 |location=Sacramento, CA |date=May 6, 2019}}</ref>

In the fall of 1860, [[Charles Marsh (railroad builder)|Charles Marsh]], surveyor, civil engineer and water company owner, met with Judah, who had recently built the [[Sacramento Valley Railroad (1852-1877)|Sacramento Valley Railroad]] from Sacramento to Folsom, California.  Marsh, who had already surveyed a potential railroad route between Sacramento and Nevada City, California, a decade earlier, went with Judah into the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  There they examined the Henness Pass Turnpike Company’s route (Marsh was a founding director of that company).  They measured elevations and distances, and discussed the possibility of a transcontinental railroad.  Both were convinced that it could be done.<ref>Lindars, Dom.  Manuscript, ''The Ditches of Nevada City,'' Chapter 24, Stories of Fire and Ice, anticipated publication date: Spring 2023.</ref><ref>“Railroad Route Discovered,” ''The Nevada Journal,'' November 9, 1860, p. 2, Nevada City, California.</ref><ref>Gorman, Richard.  “An Early Nevada City Odd Fellow,” October, 2017.  https://www.nevadacityoddfellows.com/history/charlesmarsh/.  Retrieved September 13, 2022.</ref><ref>Comstock, David Allan.  "Charles Marsh: Our Neglected Pioneer-Genius," ''Nevada County Historical Society Bulletin,'' pp. 9-11, 14-15, Volume 50, No. 2, April 1996, and papers compiled by David Comstock, Searls Historical Library, Nevada City, California.</ref><ref>“Henness Pass Turnpike Co.,” ''Daily National Democrat,'' p. 3, March 22, 1860, Marysville, California.</ref><ref>“Another Pioneer Gone,” ''San Francisco Chronicle,'' p. 3, April 29, 1876, San Francisco, California.</ref><ref>King, R. Joe.  “Nevada Survey Maps,” Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum website.  http://cprr.org/Museum/Maps/Nevada_Survey_Maps/.  Retrieved September 13, 2022.</ref><ref>Wheat, Carl I.  “A Sketch of the Life of Theodore D. Judah,” ''California Historical Society Quarterly,'' p. 250, Volume IV, No. 3, September 1925.</ref>

In November 1860, Judah published "Central Pacific Railroad to California", in which he declared "the discovery of a practicable route from the city of Sacramento upon the divide between Bear River and the North Fork of the American, via Illinoistown (near Colfax), Dutch Flat, and Summit Valley (Donner Pass) to the Truckee River".  He advocated the chosen Dutch Flat-Donner Pass route as the most practical one with maximum grades of one hundred feet per mile and 150 miles shorter than the route recommended in the government's reports.  Much of the Sierra Nevada where the practical routes were located was double-ridged, meaning two summits separated by a valley, Donner Pass was not and thus was more suitable for a railroad.  From Dutch Flat, the Pacific road would climb steadily up the ridge between the North Fork American and Bear Rivers to the Pass before winding down steadily following the Truckee River out of the mountains into the Great Basin of Nevada.  In December 1860 or early January 1861, Marsh met with Theodore Judah and Dr. Daniel Strong in Strong’s drug store in [[Dutch Flat, California]], to discuss the project, which they called the Central Pacific Railroad of California.<ref name="galloway1941">{{cite journal |last1=Galloway |first1=John Debo |title=Theodore Dehone Judah--Railroad Pioneer |journal=Civil Engineering |date=1941 |volume=11 |issue=10 (Nov) and 11 (Dec) |url=http://cprr.org/Museum/Galloway_Judah_ASCE/index.html |access-date=21 October 2019}}</ref><ref name="RogersSpinks2019" />

Judah's youthful interest in the general subject of a Pacific Railroad developed during this period into almost an obsession, his wife observing that...
:"Everything he did from the time he went to California to the day of his death was for the great continental Pacific railway. Time, money, brains, strength, body, and soul were absorbed. It was the burden of his thought day and night, largely of his conversation, till it used to be said 'Judah's Pacific Railroad crazy,' and I would say, 'Theodore, those people don't care,' or 'you give your thunder away.' He'd laugh and say, 'But we must keep the ball rolling."<ref>Wheat, Carl I. “A Sketch of the Life of Theodore D. Judah.” California Historical Society Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 3, 1925, pp. 219–271. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25177767. Accessed 14 Dec. 2020. page 227</ref> ''Wheat, A Sketch of the Life of Theodore D. Judah (1925)''

===Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR)===
Failing to raise funds for the Central Pacific project in [[San Francisco, California|San Francisco]], Judah succeeded in signing up five [[Sacramento, California|Sacramento]] merchants, : James Bailey, [[Leland Stanford]], [[Collis P. Huntington]], [[Mark Hopkins, Jr.|Mark Hopkins]], and [[Charles Crocker]]. On June 28, 1861, the Central Pacific Rail Way of California (CPRR) was incorporated with Judah as the chief engineer. At this point in time, Judah had the CPRR backing to survey the route over the Sierra Nevada along which the railroad was to be built during the 1860s, as well as barometric reconnaissance of two other routes, which turned out to be inferior. In a report dated October 1, 1861, Judah discussed the results of the survey, the merits of the chosen Dutch Flat-Donner Pass route,<ref name="galloway ch6">{{cite web |last1=Galloway |first1=John Debo |title=Locating the Central Pacific Railroad |url=http://cprr.org/Museum/Galloway6.html |website=cprr.org |quote=The reports by Judah give details of the location of the line up the Sierra Nevada, based upon his preliminary survey. Later location surveys varied from the original location at a number of places, but the line as built followed his first selection of the ridge between the Yuba and Bear rivers on the north and the North Fork of the American River. The route down the Truckee to the Big Bend at Wadsworth was also followed and it remains today the line of the Southern Pacific eastward from California.|access-date=21 October 2019}}</ref> and the estimated costs from Sacramento to points as far as Salt Lake City.  On October 9, 1861, the CPRR directors authorized Judah to go back to Washington DC, this time as the agent of CPRR, to procure "appropriations of land and U.S. Bonds from the Government to aid in the construction of this road".  The next day, Judah published a strip map (a.k.a. the Theodore Judah map), 30 inches tall by 66 feet long, of the proposed alignment of the Central Pacific Railroad.<ref name="judah map 1861">{{cite web |title=State Archives' 'First Complete Rail Map of the Sierra' Available Digitally, On Public Display for the First Time |url=https://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/news-releases-and-advisories/2019/state-archives-first-complete-rail-map-sierras-available-digitally-public-display-first-time/ |website=CA State Archives |access-date=21 November 2019 |date=7 May 2019}}</ref><ref name="sdr judah map 1861">{{cite journal |title=Central Pacific Railroad: proposed alignment (10 October 1861) |url=https://purl.stanford.edu/gh822ms4734 |website=Stanford Digital Repository |date=1861 |access-date=21 November 2019 |quote=[1] From Barmore Station to Clipper Gap -- [2] From Rattlesnake Bluffs to summit of Sierra Nevada -- [3] From summit of Sierra Nevada to Truckee River -- [4] From Dutch Flat to Rattlesnake Bluffs}}</ref>  On October 11, 1861, Judah boarded a steamer in San Francisco headed for Panama.<ref name="galloway1941" /><ref name="RogersSpinks2019" />

At Washington DC, Judah began an active campaign for a Pacific Railroad bill.  He was made the clerk of the House subcommittee on the bill and also obtained an appointment as secretary of the Senate subcommittee.  On July 1, 1862, President Lincoln signed the [[Pacific Railroad Acts|Pacific Railroad Act]] into law, which authorized the issuance of land grants and U.S. bonds to CPRR and the newly chartered [[Union Pacific Railroad]] for the construction of a [[First transcontinental railroad|transcontinental railroad]].  Judah then went to New York to order supplies and sailed back to California on July 21, 1862, having accomplished his mission in less than a year.<ref name="galloway1941" /><ref name="RogersSpinks2019" />