The Central Pacific Railroad, chartered in 1861 by California's "Big Four" merchants (Collis Huntington, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker), built the western portion of America's first transcontinental railroad. Construction began in Sacramento on January 8, 1863, and progressed eastward through the formidable Sierra Nevada mountains. The company recruited thousands of Chinese laborers from Canton Province who ultimately comprised 80 percent of the workforce by 1868—approximate