Judah, Theodore

Judah, Theodore (Dehone) (1826–63) engineer, railroad builder; born in Bridgeport, Conn. He studied engineering and worked for the railroads of the Connecticut Valley area until 1854. He went west and became the chief engineer of the Sacramento Valley Railroad. Traveling in the California mountains, he developed the idea of a transcontinental railroad. He wrote a pamphlet (1857) and persuaded Collis Huntington, Leland Stanford, and others to join him in organizing the Central Pacific Railroad Company (1861). The Huntington group bought him out for $100,000 (1863). He died of typhoid fever before the project was completed.