"Modesto owes its existence to the land, water, railroad."

"Modesto owes its existence to the land, water, railroad" by COLLEEN STANLEY BARE, © The Modesto Bee, August 30, 2007. (News Article)

"... Modesto's most important milestone was being founded in the first place. If it had not been for the ingenuity and perseverance of the Big Four (Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins and Collis Huntington), the Transcontinental Railroad probably would not have been completed in 1869. And, just seven months later, the Big Four would not have started construction of the Central Pacific Railroad through our valley. It was the arrival of that railroad that led to the growth of villages such as Modesto, Turlock, Merced and Fresno. Another milestone was rancher John Mitchell's refusal to let the Central Pacific put its rails through the town he owned, Paradise City. If he had agreed, and had paid the required tariff, the railroad company probably would have expanded Mitchell's town instead of starting a new one, a pattern it followed with other settlements. ... " [More]

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