Shipping and railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877) was a self-made multi-millionaire who became one of the wealthiest Americans of the 19th century.
James Jerome Hill (1838-1916) is best known as the “Empire Builder” who masterminded construction of the Great Northern Railroad and created a corporation controlling major lines in the northern tier of the United States.
John Stevens is considered to be the father of American railroads. In 1826 Stevens demonstrated the feasibility of steam locomotion on a circular experimental track constructed on his estate in Hoboken, New Jersey, three years before George Stephenson perfected a practical steam locomotive in England.
One of the first and best remembered tycoons was Cornelius Vanderbilt, better known as the Commodore. Vanderbilt was the classic entrepreneur, he never attended college and did not even finish public school, dropping out at the age of 11.
Jay Gould, original name Jason Gould, (born May 27, 1836, Roxbury, New York, U.S.—died December 2, 1892, New York, New York), American railroad executive, financier, and speculator, an important railroad developer who was one of the most unscrupulous “robber barons” of 19th-century American capitalism.
Called the Richest Little Railroad in the WorldThe Virginian Railway was a fairly small railroad (its main line was less than 500 miles), but it was built to extremely high standards and it “operated with precision-like efficiency” hauling coal as a competitor to the much larger Norfolk & Western Railway (N&W).
James J.Andrews, a civilian and Union spy from Kentucky, led this group of men in a daring raid to wound the Confederate states. In a small community north of Marietta called Big Shanty, known today as Kennesaw, Andrews and his “raiders” successfully captured the locomotive General on April 12, 1862.