Your story brings to mind this they also supplied the UP shovels, picks and such, after they got into power they made millions. can you imagine how many shovels it took to build the panama or the UP.
Oliver Ames was the president of the Union Pacific Railroad, while his brother Oakes was a Massachusetts congressman. But before they assumed their respective positions, the brothers ran a successful business selling axes and shovels to gold-seekers in California, and making millions in the process. The duo later supplied shovels to the government during the Civil War, for excavating the Panama Canal, for mining Pennsylvania coal fields, and for digging the New York subway system.