Mark Hopkins Monument

Mark Hopkins Monument. Construction began on this splendid mausoleum in 1878 when the then very wealthy Mary Hopkins wished to provide a suitable resting place for her recently deceased husband Mark Hopkins. The mausoleum was completed in 1880 at a cost around $80,000. , In the 1850s, Mark Hopkins had operated first a grocery store and then a hardware store in Sacramento. He became a founding partner of the Central Pacific Railroad, a visionary undertaking to build the first crossing of the continent by rail. One of the legendary Big Four, he served as Treasurer of the Central Pacific Railroad throughout its expansion until his death at sixty-five in 1878. , A full year and a half were required to erect the mausoleum, with workmen constructing around the clock to finish it. A special rail line spur was laid to transport the tons of granite from the rail depot to the cemetery and along a cemetery pathway to the building site. The original contractor was Griffith Company of Penryn, California. The Rhukala Company of Sacramento later took over the project. , There are over 350 tons of Rocky Mountain Red Granite that came from a quarry near the highest point of the Union Pacific Railroad's crossing of the Rocky Mountains. The gray granite came from a quarry near Donner Lake, the highest point of the Central Pacific Railroad's construction in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It was selected by Mrs. Hopkins because Mr. Hopkins had admired it on his first trip east on the transcontinental railroad. The walkway around the vault is comprised of three kinds of granite - red, gray and Penryn Black. The interior is said to be of polished white Italian marble. Altogether, there are probably well in excess of 900,000 pounds of stone in the structure and a concrete foundation eight feet deep. , The tomb was built to accommodate sixteen caskets, eight marble grottos on either end of the building. However, there are only four internments recorded and one of those is in question. Mark Hopkins and his brother Moses are on the west side, and his brother Ezra and nephew Samuel on the east. Samuel was a Merchant Seaman who died at seas on the way home from the Orient. It was customary at the time for those who die at sea to be buried at sea. Samuel's name is carved into the door on the southeast side of the vault. Samuel's name might be a cenotaph which is a word derived from the Greek kenos tophus, meaning "empty tomb or monument when a person is buried elsewhere.