"Gould was one of that breed of rough-and-tumble entrepreneurs who emerged after the Civil War to make huge fortunes from railroads without ever dirtying their hands in labor on a locomotive, track or anything else associatied with railroads except the till. With money made from a tannery he began to buy railroads stocks in the early 1860's. By the end of the decade, he had accumulated enough stock in the Erie Railroad to be named a director of that unfortunate enterprise. Gould, James Fisk, and Daniel Drew embezzled millions from the Erie, using the funds for wild speculations while allowing the Erie to fall into such disrepair that it was widely referred to as "two streaks of rust." Gould and his cohorts thwarted Cornelius Vanderbilt's takeover attempt by printing some 50,000 counterfeit stock certificates, most of whick Vanderbilt bought. Gould, Fisk and Drew fled to New Jersey to avoid arrest, but Gould later boldly traveled to Albany to bribe the New York legislature into legalizing the bogus stock. One of the speculations Gould attempted with embezzled Erie funds was the cornering of the gold market in 1869, a scheme that caused a financial panic and depression. Gould was finally outed from the Erie board in 1872.
Gould then went west, buying blocks of Union Pacific Railroad stock of sufficient magnitude to become a director. He held controlling interests in Kansas Pacific, Cintral Pacific and the Union Pacific. He also owned stock in several other western railroads including the Missouri Pacifiec, Texas and Pacific, St. Louis Southwestern and the International and Great Norther. By 1890 he controlled almost half of the railroad mileage in the Southwest."
Taken from "The Men Who Built the Railroads" by Aaron E. Klein
