The Big Four: The Story of Huntington, Stanford, Hopkins and Crocker and of the Building of the Central Pacific Railroad
by: Oscar Lewis

Hardcover. NY, Alfred A.Knopf, 9th pr., 1946, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth covers with gilt design.418 pages plus index, b&w illustrations. Lengthy and insightful history of Stanford, Crocker, Hopkins and Huntington (the "Big Four" of the title) along with the unsung Judah and Colton, along with their wives and families, and how their drive to establish and maintain monopolistic control of transportation to the West shaped California, for better or for worse. Their practices are the pinnacle of free-market capitalism at its best, or the nadir of obstructionist capitalism at its worst. Clean copy.