Facade of the Huntington, Hopkins & Company hardware store at 54 K Street. In 1855 Collis P. Huntington and Mark Hopkins had joined to form the Huntington & Hopkins Company, importers and dealers in hardware. It was in 1861 when four young ambitious men, later known as the Big Four, gathered on the second floor of this building to conceive a plan for the greatest railroading feat of the 19th century, construction of a link between the East Coast and the West, the Central Pacific Railroad, incorporated June 28, 1861. This photograph dates from between 1863 (when the 52 K Street numbering was dropped from the facade) and 1880 when the city revised the street numbering system.
