Jefferson & California Railroad in Conyers, Mexico del Norte.
The Jefferson and California Railroad Company, also known as the Jefferson & California Railroad, or simply as the J&C, was the first major railroad company to be founded in the United States of Mexico.
The development of the railroad was delayed in the U.S.M. by the opposition of President Andrew Jackson. It was not until the discovery of gold in California in 1838 that the need for a high-speed transportation link between Mexico's Pacific and Gulf coasts overcame Jackson's opposition. The Jefferson & California Railroad was founded by a group of French and Jeffersonian businessmen headed by Maurice Duforge and Jethro Baker, and received government support in the form of land grants and subsidies. The first rails were laid at Henrytown, Jefferson on 4 February 1839, while a second crew began construction in San Francisco, California on 11 April. Construction on both ends was supervised by French engineers, and the railroad was constructed of French iron and steel.
By the time the railroad was completed in 1848, the California Gold Rush was almost over. However, the Rocky Mountain War had begun three years earlier, and the J&C served as a crucial transportation link, allowing the U.S.M.'s military forces to move quickly to intercept invading North American armies. The formation of the Jefferson & California Railroad sparked a transportation boom in the U.S.M., leading to the formation of other railroad and steamship firms, and also providing a growing market for French coal and iron, since President Jackson refused to buy either one from the C.N.A. or Great Britain.
By the 1860s, California agriculture was booming, but the J&C was proving inadequate to meet the needs of California produce exporters, since the railroad was a single-track line connecting the northern tier of states, with no spurs to Durango, Chiapas, or the Capital District. (How this can be reconciled with the transportation boom mentioned above is left as an exercise for the reader.) This led San Francisco businessman Bernard Kramer to found Kramer Associates, a consortium established to improve transportation links between California and the rest of the U.S.M. and the world.
Despite lacking links to the southern Mexican states, the J&C was the first Mexican railroad line to link to a North American line, the Indiana Northern under company president Patrick Gallivan.
By the 1870s, the law firm of Bigham & Wilkes had become general counsel for the J&C, and it was through Bigham & Wilkes senior partner Egbert Wilkes that Benito Hermión, the son of former President Pedro Hermión, became a director of the line, and by 1880 was serving as its president. Wilkes was also an associate of Bernard Kramer, and of the president of Petroleum of Mexico, Monte Benedict, and it was at his suggestion that Hermión was named Commandant of the Constabulary in that year.
Sobel's source for the California & Jefferson Railroad is David Gould's Gold and Railroads, Profits and Losses (Mexico City, 1948).