Talk:Theodore Judah

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Is it possible Judah street in San Francisco is named after this man?--Jrm2007 (talk) 00:10, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Judah Street in San Francisco was indeed named after Theodore D. Judah. See: http://www.jdcjr.us/SFStreets1.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.144.195.188 (talk) 04:29, 21 March 2013 (UTC)


 * It's confusing, as it says as chief engineer he surveyed the route, then signed up the Big Four as investors. The article on the RR implies the Big Four came up with the plan for the RR.--Parkwells (talk) 17:27, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

It suggests that historians are divided over his legacy, and then proceeds to list only positive qualities. Is it the aforementioned marginalisation of him by the "Big Four" that divides them, or merely the "history written by the longest lived winner" problem? i.e most people erroneously believe he had nothing to do with it. 86.136.241.230 (talk) 00:53, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute versus the Rensselaer Institute
An anonymous editor changed the article from the latter to the former. The issue is the school that Judah attended in 1837. The Rensselaer School became the Rensselaer Institute in 1833, and then became the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1861. So Judah attended the Rensselaer Institute before it was renamed RPI. The anonymous editor changed it back to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Cheers Risk Engineer (talk) 09:05, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Niagara Gorge Railroad
Most published histories that include the life of Theodore Judah have Judah building the Niagara Gorge Railroad in New York before going to California in April 1854.That was impossible since the Niagara Gorge Railroad was constructed in the 1890s, decades after the death of Judah. The historians did not correctly interpret the information that Anna Judah supplied in her famous and often-quoted 1889 letter to Amos Catlin where she states that Theodore "laid out, and had built under him, the railroad down the gorge of the Niagara River to Lewiston on Lake Ontario." There was only one railroad built down the gorge during the time Theodore and Anna lived in Niagara Falls, from 1851 to 1854: the Lewiston Railroad. That it was indeed the Lewiston Railroad is confirmed in Anna’s following sentence, "Mr. Judah said to the gentlemen interested (among them Daniel Townsend, the Porters, and S.D. Whitney, of the famous cataract route, and other prominent men of Niagara Falls) ...". In 1853, when an agreement was signed between the Lewiston Railroad Company, the Buffalo & Niagara Falls Railroad Company, and the New York Central Railroad Company for the New York Central to purchase the other two railroads, Daniel I. Townsend was Secretary of the Lewiston Railroad Company, and P.B. Porter was a member of the Lewiston Railroad's Board of Directors. Anna's reference to S.D. Whitney was probably actually Solon M.N. Whitney, who was a wealthy businessman and banker in Niagara Falls. The Lewiston Railroad was constructed on a narrow bench high up on the side of the Gorge and descended down the Niagara Escarpment to the town of Lewiston, so it did go "down the gorge", but not at the bottom of the gorge as most historians assumed. The 1930 Topographic Map shows the old Lewiston Railroad labeled the N.Y.C. and H.R.R.R. (New York Central and Hudson River Railroad). Sixtypoundrail (talk) 17:03, 8 November 2021 (UTC)