Charles Crocker was an American railroad executive

Senior management

Senior management, executive management, or management team is generally a team of individuals at the highest level of organizational management who have the day-to-day responsibilities of managing a company or corporation, they hold specific executive powers conferred onto them with and by...

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Crocker was born in Troy, New York

Troy, New York

Troy is a city in the US State of New York and the seat of Rensselaer County. Troy is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany and Schenectady, forming a region popularly called the Capital...

, to a modest family and moved to an Indiana

Indiana

Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

 farm at age 14. He soon became independent, working on several farms, a sawmill, and at an iron

Iron

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

 forge. In 1845 he founded a small, independent iron forge of his own. He used this money to later invest in the railroad business.
In 1861, after hearing a very intriguing presentation by Theodore Judah

Theodore Judah

Theodore Dehone Judah was an American railroad engineer who dreamed of the first Transcontinental Railroad. He found investors for what became the Central Pacific Railroad...

, he was one of the four principal investors along with Mark Hopkins, Collis Huntington and Leland Stanford

Leland Stanford

Amasa Leland Stanford was an American tycoon, industrialist, robber baron, politician and founder of Stanford University.-Early years:...

 (also known as the big four) who formed the Central Pacific Railroad

Central Pacific Railroad

The Central Pacific Railroad is the former name of the railroad network built between California and Utah, USA that formed part of the "First Transcontinental Railroad" in North America. It is now part of the Union Pacific Railroad. Many 19th century national proposals to build a transcontinental...

, which became the western portion of the First Transcontinental Railroad

First Transcontinental Railroad

The First Transcontinental Railroad was a railroad line built in the United States of America between 1863 and 1869 by the Central Pacific Railroad of California and the Union Pacific Railroad that connected its statutory Eastern terminus at Council Bluffs, Iowa/Omaha, Nebraska The First...

 in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

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