Kansas Pacific Railroad

“ It was on the part of our government a sublime recognition of the power of steam, that, while it was struggling for existence, it gave its sanction to the Pacific Railroad enterprise. Curiously enough, it is through Kansas and Nebraska—the Epidaurus of our Peloponnesian war—that the two great rival Pacific Railroad routes are to run.
In the summer of 1861, the project of a trans-continental railway connecting our Pacific communities with the older population of the East first assumed a practical aspect. ”

“ In accepting the act in February, 1864, the legislature of Kansas enacted that if Congress, before the 4th of March, 1866, should consent that the Neosho Valley branch of the road be extended so as to intersect the Union Pacific road, eastern division, at or near Fort Riley, and should make a grant of lands for such extension of like amount with that granted per mile for the construction of the main road, then the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa F e Railroad Company should proceed to construct such branch. ”

“ Union Pacific became interested in the development in order to increase the volume of its traffic; for unlike the situation in the Missouri market it was, with a minor exception, the only railroad with tracks serving the proposed Kansas site. Because business in the Greater Kansas City area was believed insufficient to support a split market, partly in Kansas and partly in Missouri, the plan included taking steps to persuade dealers on the Missouri side to move to Kansas. ”

“ In the Kansas case there are other reasons more direct and powerful perhaps than any traffic arrangement. The Standard people have acquired a large interest in the Santa Fe. One of their strongest and most unscrupulous men, H. H. Rogers, has taken a place on the board of directors. John D. Rockefeller and Wm. Rockefeller are directors of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, and the Missouri Pacific is one of the principal lines of the Gould-Rockefeller system. There are other indications of the grip the Standard has upon the Kansas railroads. ”

“ On the Missouri River the Company had in service six large steamboats carrying supplies and material for construction from Kansas City where there was railroad connection with the East by way of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad and the Missouri Pacific Railroad.
(p. 047) Everything had to be brought in, the country being destitute of even stone and lumber, involving great expense and delays. While the level country enabled rapid progress to be made in grading, it was almost impossible to bring forward the requisite material to keep up with the graders and track-layers. ”

“ President Lincoln himself fixed the termination of the new line at Omaha, in Nebraska. The work was immediately begun and continued with characteristic American energy, which is neither red-tapeish nor bureaucratic. The rapidity of the work did not affect its completeness; they laid a mile and a half of line across the prairie every day; an engine, carrying the rails to be used next day, ran on the line only just laid, and advanced as quickly as they were fixed.
The Pacific railroad has several branches in the States of Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, and Oregon. ”

“ And be it further enacted, That said Pacific Railroad Company, Southern Branch, its successors and assigns, is hereby authorized and empowered to extend and construct its railroad from the southern boundary of Kansas, south through the Indian territory, with the consent of the Indians, and not otherwise, along the valley of Grand and Arkansas rivers, to Fort Smith, in the state of Arkansas ”

“ On June 30, 1900, the Union Pacific, Oregon Short Line, and258 Oregon Railroad & Navigation Companies operated 5427.89 miles of line. The system stretched from Kansas City and Council Bluffs to Ogden, and reached the Pacific coast in the Northwest at Portland. It had no rails of its own in California, but was dependent on the Southern Pacific tracks for connections both at Ogden and at Portland. The Southern Pacific extended from New Orleans through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona to California, and thence up the coast to Sacramento. ”

“ In nearly every community, about every capital, State or National, you will find men who are capable of being influenced. This is especially true of new communities through which a railway is being built. It has always been so, and will be, so long as time expires. I mean the time of an annual pass. It is not surprising, then, that in Kansas at that time, the Grasshopper period,—before prohibition, Mrs. Nation, and religious dailies,—the company had its friends, and that Mr. Jones, an honest farmer with money to spend, had his. ”

“ Through this vast mountain district, over deserts and along devious defiles, a half-dozen great railways lead from the Mississippi Valley to the Pacific slope. The Southern Pacific Railway we have already followed from New Orleans across to Southern California. Northward from its route at El Paso a railway leads through New Mexico to the next great transcontinental line, the Atchison system, coming from Chicago by way of Kansas City and Santa Fé southwestward The main line traverses Kansas, and branches go south into the Indian Territory and Oklahoma. ”

“ The railroad in those days had to create its own traffic, and population followed the means of transportation. The peculiarity of Kansas was a central position, which lent itself to schemes of the most far-reaching nature. A railroad reaching from one end of the state to the other might almost equally well have been extended to California, to Chicago, or to the Gulf ”

“ From these assumptions, it is insisted, that the order must be construed according to its necessary effect, and therefore must be treated as imposing a direct burden upon interstate commerce by compelling the operation of the passenger train, not only within the state of Kansas, but beyond its borders. ”

“ The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway was completed in 1872. In the meantime a number of other roads were built. The railroads received large grants of land, which they sold to settlers, thereby raising money and increasing business. They advertised Kansas widely. The people 185 soon found it necessary to regulate the railroads, and created for this purpose the Railroad Commission, now the Public Utilities Commission. Besides the various railroad systems of the State, there are many interurban lines and a rapidly growing motor truck service. Great progress in road improvement is being made. ”

“ Congress renounced all rate concessions in 1945.
Monument commerating the last spike on the joining of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads into the first transcontinental railway in this country.
Railroads Dominate U.S. Transportation
The northern States had such tremendous productive capacity that they were able to fight the Civil War and at the same time push a railroad across the western plains and mountains. This railroad, liberally aided by grants of public land and Government loans, was completed in 1869. ”

“ Railroad building also began in 1865, and 1,283 miles were completed by 1870. The home-returning soldiers and the railroads came together. Immigrants to other States came in slow-moving canal boats or canvas-covered wagons, but they came to Kansas in the lightning express, and most of them went to their claims in comfortable cars drawn by that marvel of modern mechanism, the locomotive. Our State has never had a “coon-skin cap” population. It is the child of the prairies, not of the forest. It has always attracted men of intelligence, who knew a good thing when they saw it. ”

“ The great enterprise of connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific States by railways and telegraph lines has been entered upon with a vigor that gives assurance of success, notwithstanding the embarrassments arising from the prevailing high prices of materials and labor. The route of the main line of the road has been definitely located for 100 miles westward from the initial point at Omaha City, Nebr., and a preliminary location of the Pacific Railroad of California has been made from Sacramento eastward to the great bend of the Truckee River in Nevada. ”