Edward L. Berthoud

Captain Edward Louis Berthoud was a military officer, statesman and engineer in the western United States during the late 19th century. He is primarily known as the chief engineer and secretary of the Colorado Central Railroad during its expansion throughout Colorado in the 1870s. The town of Berthoud, Colorado, as well as Berthoud Pass in the Rocky Mountains west of Denver, are named for him.

Berthoud was born Edouard Louis Berthoud (pronounced "bare-too") in Geneva, Switzerland on March 29, 1828. He came to the United States in 1830 with his parents and spent his childhood along the Mohawk River and in Oneida County in Upstate New York. In the United States, the family Americanized the pronunciation of their name to "ber-thud".

Berthoud graduated with a degree in engineering from Union College in 1849. In the early 1850s he worked as a surveyor on the Panama Canal. In 1855, he was living in Leavenworth in the Kansas Territory where he became interested in the effort to build the first transcontinental railroad. In 1860, during the Colorado Gold Rush, Berthoud and his wife Helen settled in the western part of the territory in the new town of Golden. Helen was a daughter of a founding Golden family, the Ferrells, and an original street of the town was named in her honor. In 1861, the town became part of the Colorado Territory. Berthoud spent much of his career surveying roads and railways throughout the region, and became an active citizen in Golden.

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