Linking the Oceans by Railroad by John Moody

Linking the Oceans By Railroad

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The close relationship between railroad expansion and the general development and prosperity of the country is nowhere brought more distinctly into relief than in connection with the construction of the Pacific railroads. With the opening of a transcontinental line the vast El Dorado of the West was laid practically at the doorstep of Eastern capital. Not only did American pioneers turn definitely toward the West, but foreign emigrants bent their steps in vast numbers in that direction, and capital in steadily increasing amounts made its way there. Towns sprang up everywhere and soon developed into busy centers of trade and commerce.

Caravan trains, which a few years before had followed a single westward line, now started from points along the railroad artery and penetrated far to the north and south. The settlers knew that the time was not far distant when all the vast territory west of the Missouri, from the Canadian border to the Rio Grande, would be reached by the rapid spread of the railroad.

The Prospect Hill Cut near Sacramento, California

is 150 feet deep, 74 feet wide, photo 1869.

This image available for photographic prints HERE!

In the sixties and seventies there sprang up and rapidly developed in size and importance such centers as Kansas City, Sioux City, Denver, Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, Atchison, Topeka, Helena, Portland, Seattle, Duluth, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and scores of smaller places. The entire Pacific slope was soon dotted with towns and cities, and even the great arid plains of the West--as well as the "Great American Desert" covering Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Nevada -- began to take on signs of life which had not been dreamed of a decade before.

But the development of this great section of the country during the next few years was even more notable. By 1880 four different lines of railroad were running through to the Pacific States, and a fifth, the Denver and Rio Grande, had penetrated through the mountains of Colorado and across Utah to the Great Salt Lake. These were the years when the modern industrial era was really beginning. Man's viewpoint was changing, and instead of remaining content with the material achievements of the Atlantic and Central sections of the continent, he began to realize that the vast Western regions and the thousand miles of Pacific coast line were destined to be America's inexhaustible patrimony for the years to come.

In 1880 the Union Pacific began its expansion to the eastward and acquired control of the Kansas Pacific, which had come upon evil days, and of the Denver Pacific, a most important connecting link. In January, 1880, these two companies were absorbed by the Union Pacific, which thus obtained a continuous line from St. Louis westward. In the meantime the Central Pacific, operating from Ogden west to the coast, had added many branches, while a new company--known as the Southern Pacific Railroad of California--had for some years been constructing a system of lines throughout that State south of the Central Pacific and by 1877 had penetrated to Yuma, Arizona, 727 miles southeast of San Francisco. It had also built lines into Arizona and New Mexico and soon joined the Santa Fe route, which had for some time been working westward.

During 1881 the Southern Pacific continued its eastern extensions along the Rio Grande to El Paso, Texas , where it formed a connection with a new road under construction from New Orleans. A junction was also made at El Paso with the Mexican Central, which was under construction to the City of Mexico.

Southern Pacific Railroad bridge over the Calloway Canal,

Kern County, California, 1888.

This image available for photographic prints HERE!

The Southern Pacific Railroad was closely allied with the Central Pacific interests headed by Collis P. Huntington, and in 1884 the great Southern Pacific Company was formed, which acquired stock control of the entire aggregation of railroads in the South and Southwest. At the same time the Central Pacific came under direct control of the Southern Pacific through a long lease.

During these eventful years, while the Southern Pacific properties were penetrating eastward through the broad stretches of country to the south of the Union Pacific lines, equally interesting events were occurring in the north. In 1879 a consolidation was formed of the Oregon Steamship and Navigation Company with several short railway lines in Oregon and Washington, under the name of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company.

These railroad lines extended east from Portland to the Oregon state line, and north to Spokane, and they finally made connection with the new Northern Pacific. At the same time, another road, known as the Oregon Short Line Railroad, was built from Granger, Wyoming , on the line of the Union Pacific to a junction with the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company at Huntington, Oregon, on the Snake River. The Oregon Short Line came under the control of the Union Pacific and was opened for traffic in 1881. Later a close alliance was made with Henry Villard, the controlling spirit in the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company. Ultimately the entire system of Oregon lines passed under Union Pacific control, to be lost in the receivership of 1893, but later recovered under the Harriman regime.

When, after ten more years of expansion, the great Union Pacific property went into the hands of receivers in 1893, it had grown to a system of more than 8,000 miles. It completely controlled the Oregon railway and steamship lines, the lines to St. Louis, and also an important extension known as the Union Pacific, Denver and Gulf Railroad, running from a point in Wyoming across Colorado to Fort Worth, Texas. The financial failure of the system was due to a variety of causes. Its management had been extravagant and inefficient, and construction and expansion had been too rapid. The policy of building expensive branch lines where they were not needed and of obligating the parent company to finance them had been a grievous mistake and had contributed largely to the downfall of the company. Further than this, the credit of the Union Pacific was steadily growing weaker because the time was drawing near when its heavy debt to the United States Government would fall due. In all its history of more than twenty years the company had never paid any interest on the government debt nor had it maintained a sinking fund to meet the principal when due. Consequently, the accruing interest had mounted year by year and, should the Government enforce payment at maturity in 1897-99, the company would be doomed to bankruptcy. This government debt, including accrued interest, amounted to the sum of $54,000,000.

Attention should not, however, be diverted from the fact that during all these years a vast expansion of competitive lines had been going on far southward of the Union Pacific. Under the guiding genius of Collis P. Huntington, the Southern Pacific Company in 1884 had consolidated and solidified a gigantic system of railways extending from New Orleans to the Pacific and throughout the entire State of California to Portland, Oregon , with branch lines radiating through Texas and making close connection with roads entering St. Louis. In addition to these railroads, Huntington acquired control of a steamship line operating from New York to New Orleans and Galveston, and subsequently of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, operating along the coast from Oregon south to the Isthmus of Panama and across the Pacific Ocean. The ever-growing effects of this powerful and well-managed competitor--combined with the large development of the Santa Fe system during these years, the competition of the completed Northern Pacific, and the possibilities of the new Great Northern Railway or Hill line, now completing its main artery to the Pacific--were far-reaching enough in themselves to bring the Union Pacific upon evil days. Consequently few were surprised when, under the great pressure of the panic of 1893, the property was forced to confess insolvency. The Union Pacific had simply repeated the story of most American railroads; it had been constructed in advance of population and had to pay the penalty. Yet it had more than justified the hopes of the daring spirits who projected it. It may have made individuals bankrupt, but it magnificently fulfilled the part which it was expected to play. It had opened up millions of acres to cultivation, given homesteads to millions of people, many of whom were immigrants from Europe, developed mineral lands of incalculable value, created several new great States, and made the American nation a unified whole. Its subsequent history belongs to another chapter of this story--a history that is richer than the first in the matter of financial success but that can never surpass the early pioneering years in real and permanent achievement.

Added November, 2006

Joining of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Lines at Promontory Point, Utah , 10 May 1869.

This image available for photographic prints HERE!

About the Author:

John Moody was the author of The Railroad Builders, A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, written in 1919. A Century of Railroad Building is the first chapter of the book.

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