The politician and entrepreneur who founded Stanford University

What do entrepreneur Elon Musk, assassinated President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, golfer Tiger Woods, former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and actress Sigourney Weaver have in common? Oddly enough, they all share the common thread of having studied at Stanford University in California, one of the most prestigious universities in the world. It has produced 58 Nobel laureates, in addition to a vast number of high-ranking officials in both the business world and the US public administration. This highly successful university was founded in 1885 as a result of a personal tragedy. Its founder, Leland Stanford, suffered the death of his teenage son from typhus and decided to create the university in his memory. At the time, Stanford had already amassed a considerable fortune, largely through his railroad business.

It all began in New York State, where Stanford was born. His father combined his work in agriculture with other side businesses, which allowed the family to live comfortably, but he preferred to study law and make a name for himself in the legal world. After practicing law in the Great Lakes region, he chose to emigrate to California during the height of the Gold Rush, a phenomenon that had begun in 1848. But his aim wasn't to search for the precious metal in the veins of the Sierra Nevada mountains; rather, as the miner says, they were really making money. In 1856, still in California, he joined forces with three other wealthy merchants to invest in a railroad project. This quartet of entrepreneurs would eventually become known as the Big Four (the other three magnates were Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, and Collis Huntington). With crucial support from the government, which granted them land and provided credit, they founded the Central Pacific Railroad Company in 1861 with the goal of connecting the East and West Coasts of the United States. Stanford was the company's president. A few years earlier, our protagonist had entered politics through the Republican Party, which allowed him to become governor of California in 1862, after a series of initial setbacks. The Big Four's railroad company proved to be a resounding success, eventually absorbing rival firms such as the Western Pacific and the Southern Pacific. These acquisitions gave them control of 5,000 miles of track, representing 85% of California's rail network. A historic date in Stanford's life was May 10, 1869, when he personally drove the so-called Golden Spike, the final spike of the transcontinental railway line. This action brought him lifelong fame. It should be noted that Stanford's business dealings were characterized by the worst practices of American capitalism during the second half of the 19th century, the so-called Gilded Age, with the habitual use of monopolistic practices, bribery, and all manner of collusion between politics and business. The fortune he amassed allowed him to acquire immense estates in California, which he largely dedicated to breeding racehorses. It was he who was behind the experiment by photographer Eadweard Muybridge that revealed that a galloping horse can have all four hooves off the ground simultaneously (the experiment in question was known as Horse in Motion and was conducted in 1878). He also found time for wine, as he was one of the pioneers of viticulture in California through his company, Vina Winery. In 1885, he returned to politics, serving as a senator for eight years. One of the initiatives he promoted during this period was the creation of a currency backed not only by the gold standard but also by agricultural landholdings. The proposal did not pass. And so we arrive at March 1884, a moment that would change his life. On one of their many family trips, this time to northern Italy, his only son died of typhus at just 16 years old. With the purpose of ensuring that "the children of California are our children," in the fall of 1891, Stanford University opened its doors, its official and little-known name being Leland Stanford Junior University. The initial driving force behind the project was "to promote the public welfare by exerting an influence on behalf of humanity and civilization."