page_title: Collis Potter Huntington
section_title: Southern Pacific Railroad
hierarchical_section_title: Collis Potter Huntington / Biography / Southern Pacific Railroad
caption_attribution_description: English: The CSX-Huntington Division Headquarters with the statue of Collis P. Huntington by Gutzon Borglum in the foreground. Taken May 18, 2013.
context_page_description: Collis Potter Huntington was an American industrialist. He was one of the Big Four of western railroading who invested in Theodore Judah's idea to build the Central Pacific Railroad as part of the first U.S. transcontinental railroad. Huntington then helped lead and develop other major interstate lines such as the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, which he was recruited to help complete. The C&O, completed in 1873, fulfilled a long-held dream of Virginians of a rail link from the James River at Richmond to the Ohio River Valley. The new railroad facilities adjacent to the river there resulted in expansion of the former small town of Guyandotte, West Virginia into part of a new city which was named Huntington in his honor.
  Next, turning attention to the eastern end of the line at Richmond, he was responsible for the C&O's Peninsula Extension in 1881–82 which opened a pathway for West Virginia bituminous coal to reach new coal piers on the harbor of Hampton Roads for export shipping. He also is credited with the development of Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, as well as the incorporation of Newport News, Virginia as a new independent city.
context_section_description: Beginning in 1865, he was also involved in the establishment of the Southern Pacific Railroad with the Big Four principals of the Central Pacific Railroad. The railroad's first locomotive, C. P. Huntington, was named in his honor. With rail lines from New Orleans to the Southwest and into California, Southern Pacific grew to more than 9,000 miles of track. It also controlled 5,000 miles of connecting steamship lines.  Using the Southern Pacific Railroad, Huntington endeavored to prevent the port at San Pedro from becoming the main Port of Los Angeles in the Free Harbor Fight.
caption: CSX (the former C&O Railway) Huntington Division Headquarters, with a statue of Collis P. Huntington by Gutzon Borglum in the foreground.
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