Railroad Companies in American History

Winning the sole right to build south through Indian Territory, construction began southward and the company also acquired the Tebo & Neosho Railroad, that connected Sedalia, Missouri to Parsons, Kansas. The "Katy," touted in advertisements as the Gateway to Texas, breached the Texas frontier near the site of present Denison, where the first regular train arrived on Christmas Day, 1872. Eventually, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad grew to link Missouri's main cities, with Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; as well as Texas' large cities, including Dallas, Fort Worth, Waco, Temple, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and Galveston.

The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad was purchased by the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company (MoPac), a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1988. By that time, the century old company served six midwestern states with more than 3,377 miles of track. Today, it continues to operates as part of the Union Pacific Railroad system.

Northern Pacific Railroad (1864-1970) - Chartered by the Federal Government on July 2, 1864, the Northern Pacific was the first northern transcontinental railroad in the United States. The federal charter and the completion of its mainline in 1883 were major factors in the opening of the northern tier of United States. Operating primarily in the north-central region of the United States, the railroad served a large area, including extensive trackage in Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin.

The company was first headquartered in Brainerd, Minnesota when it was granted some 47,000,000 acres of land to building rail transportation to undeveloped territories. Like other start-up railroad companies, the Northern Pacific struggled with financing during its first few years, as the costs of building a railroad into a vast wilderness were drastically underestimated. Organizationally, it survived numerous financial upsets, takeovers, reorganizations, financial panics , and lawsuits, but finally, the final spike was driven in at Gold Creek, Montana on September 8, 1883.

For the next two decades the railroad continued to build tracks and grow and by the turn of the century was famous for its passenger service throughout the northern United States. By the 1950s, the Northern pacific had almost 7,000 route miles in its system.

However, after more than a century of operation, in March, 1970, the Northern Pacific merged with the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad, Great Northern Railway, Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway, and their subsidiaries to become the Burlington Northern Railroad.

Southern Pacific Railroad (1865-1996) - Founded as a land holding company in 1865, its original charter called for the railroad to be built through southern California through Arizona and New Mexico to El Paso, Texas. However, it later expanded to New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1885, Southern Pacific leased the operations of the  Central Pacific Railroad, which technically remained a corporate entity until 1959 when it was formally merged into Southern Pacific. By 1900, the Southern Pacific Company had grown into a major railroad system which incorporated many smaller companies, such as the Texas and New Orleans Railroad and Morgan's Louisiana and Texas Railroad. Through the years, the line expanded to more than 13,000 miles of rail covering most of the southwestern United States.

On August 9, 1988, the Southern Pacific was sold to Rio Grande Industries, the company that controlled the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. However, the railroad retained its name until it was taken over by Union Pacific in 1996.

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