Three separate buildings raised along the Sacramento River waterfront over 1851–1852 make up the Big Four Building in front of you, inside Old Sacramento State Historic Park. These façades began life as three separate buildings raised along the Sacramento River waterfront over 1851–1852: the Stanford Building, the Huntington & Hopkins Building, and the Miller Building. On their lower floors merchants ran businesses; one of those firms, Huntington, Hopkins & Co., occupied 54 "K" Street and imported hardware, iron, steel, and coal.
Above, on the second floor, the very men who became known as the Big Four — Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins, Jr., Leland Stanford, together with Charles Crocker — organized and ran the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California. From these rooms they planned, built, and operated the western section of the First Transcontinental Railroad linking California with the Eastern U.S., and from here they also founded the Southern Pacific Railroad. Notice the preserved streets and the river beyond, the setting where the Big Four once planned the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads.