San Francisco-Sacramento County CA Archives Biographies.....Huntington, Collis P. October 22, 1821 - August 13, 1900
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Source: California and Californians, Vol. IV, Published 1932, Pages 76 - 77
Author: The Lewis Publishing Company

     COLLIS P. HUNTINGTON. In Collis P. Huntington Connecticut produced a man 
of business whose financial skill amounted to genius. He was born at 
Harwinton, Connecticut, October 22, 1821, the descendant of a noted New 
England family. At fifteen he started peddling clocks through the South and 
West, and it was during these journeys that the first realized the country's 
need for adequate means of transportation.

     It is said of Huntington that after he had once traversed a road he could 
draw an accurate map of the region. He possessed a broad vision of the country 
as a whole, and dreamed of giving it unity by means of railroads.

     When gold was discovered in California, he immediately set out for the 
new El Dorado. Unlike many of the pioneers who arrived in the new country 
without funds, Huntington actually increased his resources on the way. He did 
so by judicious trading while his party was held up in Panama for several 
months. Upon his arrival in California he started a hardware store in 
Sacramento. Later he became the partner of Mark Hopkins, and the firm of 
Huntington & Hopkins was one of the most successful in the state.

     With Hopkins, Charles Crocker and Leland Stanford — the Big Four — he 
laid plans for the building of the Central Pacific Railroad, which was begun 
in 1859 and completed ten years later. Each of these men had an important part 
in that work. Huntington acted as fiscal agent, and in that capacity solved 
the enormous financial difficulties of the project.

     Later, with his associates, he built the Southern Pacific, which was 
completed in 1881, and the Chesapeake and Ohio. In time he came to operate 
forty-four railroads and branches, along continuous lines from Portland, 
Oregon, via San Francisco and New Orleans, to Newport News, Virginia. The 
industrial development of the West and South is due in no small degree to his 
grasp of the problem of transportation. Whatever criticism may be made of his 
methods, which were often individualistic in the extreme, he did accomplish a 
work of importance and benefit to the country at large.

     As president of the Southern Pacific, he also acquired a number of 
steamship lines and built up a veritable empire of trade. He also found time 
to become a prodigal patron of art, of which he was keenly appreciative, and 
to interest himself in the education of negroes and Indians. At his death he 
bestowed his $3,000,000 collection of paintings upon the Metropolitan Museum, 
and during his life he gave liberally to the Hampton and Tuskegee institutes.

     Something of his personality is revealed in a story of his boyhood. He 
was working on a farm for a neighbor, at $7 a month and board. At the end of a 
year's work he displayed his savings — $84. "Why," said a friend, "that's 
every cent of what you earned!" "Exactly," said Huntington, "that's why I 
didn't save any more."

     He died August 13, 1900, at his camp in the Adirondacks, at the age of 
seventy-nine. His fortune was estimated at from $35,000,000 to $80,000,000. He 
was one of the big men, one of the great builders, of his time — that period 
in our history which saw the amazing industrial development of a rich, new 
country. Huntington and his associates made that development possible. All 
Americans have shared in the fruits of their work.—By Eric Howard.

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