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Sesquicentennial celebration of Central Pacific Railroad planned
As information, Dr. Orsi is the author of a very good book: “Sunset Limite: The Southern Pacific and the Development of the American West, 1850-1930”.
Orsi used original sources and dispelled a lot of the myths contained in the fictional “Octopus”. If you want to know the real history of the SP his book is a great source of information.
Not only is Dr. Orsi’s book prime reading and reference material, so too is David lavender’s The Great Persuader, an exhaustive portrayal of C.P. Huntington made from his unsealed personal papers and correspondence. A recent book (two volumes) by Ramirez on Mark Hopkins is also worth finding through online book dealers. It was self-published and has some sloppy spelling errors (mostly personal names) but also richly extends the narrative on the CPRR’s founding and development, which was often precarious right through the dreadful 1890s. That Ramirez was able to draw out from the murk more about Hopkins and do it so well is very significant!