Mark Hopkins Jr.

Mark Hopkins
Photo by I. W. Taber
Born	(1813-09-01)September 1, 1813
Died	March 29, 1878(1878-03-29) (aged 64) Yuma, Arizona

Mark Hopkins (September 1 1813 – March 29 1878) was one of four principal investors who formed the Central Pacific Railroad along with Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, and Collis Huntington in 1861.

Railroad experience

Sometimes called "Uncle Mark", he was the eldest of the The Big Four and was well known for his thriftiness (it was said that he knew how to "squeeze 106 cents out of every dollar"), a reputation that gained him the post of company treasurer. Prior to the railroad, he and Collis Huntington were partners in the operation of a Sacramento hardware store during the California Gold Rush.

San Francisco connection

Hopkins commissioned a mansion to be built at the top of Nob Hill in San Francisco, California in 1875. The project manager was architectural engineer William Wallace Barbour Sheldon, who worked for Hopkins under the Southern Pacific Improvement Company. Unfortunately Hopkins died aboard a company train near Yuma, Arizona before it was completed. His widow, Mary, lived in the structure until it burned to the ground in a fire caused by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The Mark Hopkins Hotel (currently InterContinental Mark Hopkins San Francisco) was built in its place in 1926.

Mary Hopkins also built and lived at the Searles Castle in Massachusetts.

Hopkins is buried in Old Sacramento City Cemetery in Sacramento, California.

Sources

• Ambrose, Stephen E. (2000). Nothing Like It In The World; The men who built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-0317-8.
• Yenne, Bill (1985). The History Of The Southern Pacific. Bison Books Corp. ISBN 0-517-46084-X.
• Findagrave.com, Mark Hopkins. Retrieved December 13 2005.
• Genealogy of Mark HOPKINS & Mary Frances SHERWOOD.