Theodore Dehone Judah (1826-1863), American engineer and railroad promoter, developed the plans that led to construction of the first transcontinental railroad.

Theodore Judah was born in Bridgeport, Conn., where his father was an Episcopal minister, but the family moved to Troy, N.Y., while he was still young. He attended the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the first private engineering school in the world. After graduation he took a job helping build the Troy and Schenectady Railroad. Then, in rapid succession, he worked for three other railroads, planned and built the Niagara Gorge Railroad, helped build the Erie Canal, and erected a large bridge in Vermont.

Following the example of a brother who had gone to California in the gold rush of 1849, Judah went west in 1854, shortly after marrying. Two years earlier a group of California promoters had conceived of a railroad from Sacramento, where ships arrived from San Francisco...