USA > Kansas > Wyandotte County > History of Wyandotte County, Kansas, and its people, Vol. I > Part 48
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THE "JOY ROADS."
The next road, in point of time, was built by the same group of men that put the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston into operation, and was called the Missouri River, Fort Scott & Gulf. The two roads were known to early Kansas history as the "Joy Roads," at least until the sale of the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston to the Santa Fe. The Missouri River, Fort Seott & Gulf was organized in 1868 for the pur- pose of facilitating the development of the southeastern part of the state, and received aid from the state of Kansas in the shape of a grant of 125,000 aeres of land, or a little more than 830 acres per mile of track. Baxter Springs, Kansas, on the southern line of the state, was the end on the road as originally completed in 1870, giving it a total length of 161 miles, with Kansas City as its other terminus. The pro- moters had the intention of ultimately building southward to some then indeterminate point, but it was not for some time that it was finally con- neeted with Memphis, on the Mississippi river. In addition to the aid that the state gave in the shape of the grant of land, the eities and towns along the line of the survey donated bonds aggregating $750,000, or more than $4,600 per mile. The road was of considerable importance in relation to the manufacturing interests of the country, in that it was the first to reach the coal belt of the state, and in the first year of oper- ation some 2,000 ears of coal were shipped to Kansas City for distribu- tion, from the surface deposits of coal in the vicinity of Fort Scott. When the coal fields of the Pittsburg distriet were opened in the later seventies, the road, now known as the Kansas City, Fort Seott & Gulf was already in operation, and put the coal on the market as fast as the field was developed.
THE "KATY" SYSTEM.
In the same year that the Joy interests began grading for their line to the gulf, work was commenced on still another road, to extend from Junetion City, Kansas, on the Kansas Pacifie, to Forth Smith, in the
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Indian Territory, a distance of abont 180 miles according to the original project. The road, though called the "Union Pacific, Southern Branch Railway," was independent of the Pacific system, and got no aid from the government, though it did succeed in obtaining a grant of 125,000 acres of land from the state, and an aggregate of $730,000 in bonds from the counties through which it passed. The line was completed across the state in 1871, but, beginning nowhere and ending in the same manner, it was found necessary to make some sort of extension as soon as possible. Accordingly, in the same year that the road was completed, some smaller lines in the eastern part of the state were acquired, the plans perfected for a connection with St. Louis and with the Gulf on the south, and the name of the road changed to "The Missouri, Kansas & Texas." In 1872 the "Katy" purchased lines connecting Paola, Kansas, its eastern point, with St. Louis and Hannibal, Missouri, and in the same year extended the southern end of its road through the Indian Territory to the Texas line, a conditional grant of three and one-half million acres of Indian lands having been secured in the meantime from the government.
In the later seventies the road had nearly 800 miles of track in operation, and early in 1880 it was acquired by the late Jay Gould and his interests. Gould at that time was in control of the Pacific Rail- road of Missouri, referred to above, and he put the two roads loosely under one management and set about extending their lines in Kansas under the name of the Missouri Pacific, to compete with the Santa Fe lines. The union of the roads did not last long, but, while it did, Gould succeeded in unloading his branch lines at fancy prices, and when the "Katy" resumed its old name and separate existence, eight years later, it had doubled in mileage in the four states that it penetrated.
THE "'FRISCO" BUILT.
In the year 1871 another railway entered this section, this time building into it from the east. It was the St. Louis & San Francisco, originally projected as a branch of the Missouri Pacific in 1866. It began a separate existence in 1876, having in the meantime been ex- tended to Vinita, in the northeastern part of the Indian Territory, by the aid of a grant of a little over a million acres of land from the government. The road became especially important a little later when the lead and zinc mines were developed in the Joplin district, which it traversed, and still later as the development of the coal field was pushed southward into the Indian territory.
One of the most remarkable features of the growth of American railways is the building of the roads in the Nebraska-Kansas-Oklahoma region that has just been outlined. There were in the three states, ac- cording to "Poor's Manual," 2,306 miles of railway in 1870, and in
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1875 there were 3,592 miles. Very little construction was done for four or five years following the panie of 1873, but work was resumed with a will in the two years preceding Poor's report for 1880; and in that year there were 5,632 miles in operation.
It is hardly profitable in this connection to pursue the development further, for later than this time it becomes a matter of extension for the sake of competing for business, rather than for the securing of the subsidies offered, as in the case of the early roads. It is sufficient to say that by 1890 the principal work of railroad building was completed in this section, there being in all more than 15,000 miles in operation at that time.
FIRST RAILROADS STARTED FROM WYANDOTTE.
The agitation for the building of railroads in Kansas began at Quindaro and Wyandotte in the fifties, and the first railway promoters from the outside were keen enough to see the advantage of that loeality, where the Kansas and the Missouri valleys meet, as the natural trans- continental terminal.
When Quindaro was at the height of its growth, in the summer of 1857, the Quindaro, Parkville & Burlington Railroad, to connect Quin- daro with the Hannibal & St. Joe, was a subject much broached ; but the first actual survey of a road in the county was made from Quindaro to Lawrence, under the charter of the Missouri River & Rocky Mountain Railroad. The first actual grading for a road was done at Wyandotte, on the Kansas Valley line, in 1859. James R. Parr. then mayor of the city. was a prime mover in the enterprise. The grade was about twenty feet higher than the present roadbed of the Kansas Pacific. Before this road was put in operation. in 1863. a number of territorial thoroughfares had been established. under the act approved in Febru- ary, 1859. In June, one was located from Wyandotte, via Quindaro, Leavenworth and Atchison, to Elwood, Doniphan county : the Santa Fe road in this county in October, 1859: and the road from Quindaro to Salina, via Lawrence and Topeka (fifteen miles in Wyandotte county), in August, 1859. During the next summer the Shawnee & Kansas City, or State Line road, was also repaired, straightened and regulated. Besides this activity manifested in obtaining good means of communi- eation with their neighbors, the people of Wyandotte county put their hands in their pockets, as private individuals, and helped along the good work.
FIRST LOCOMOTIVE IN KANSAS.
There were other "movements," too, and it so happened that the first mile of iron placed on a roadbed in Kansas was at Elwood on the Elwood & Maryville Railroad, in April, 1860; also it is recorded that the
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first locomotive to touch Kansas soil was ferried across the river from St. Joseph and placed on the track at Elwood. But, whatever may have happened to this project, it remains an historical fact that the first trains to run on real rails ran out the Kansas river valley from Wyandotte.
In congress, in 1856-8, when the bill for a transcontinental road was up, it provided a Missouri river terminal at Leavenworth. But Senator John B. Henderson of Missouri, a man of great influence at that time in national affairs, insisted that the terminal be changed to the month of the Kansas river. £ Ilis argument was convincing and that is how it came about that this place was chosen as the starting point of the rail- roads that were to penetrate the western country.
EARLIEST RAILROADS.
In 1863 a steamboat landed at Wyandotte the first equipment for building the Kansas Pacific Railroad west from this point, and a loco- motive. A depot was built in Wyandotte, near the foot of Minnesota avenue, and in November, 1864, the first passenger train was run to Lawrence, Kansas. At this time a pontoon bridge was built by the company and the United States government across the Kansas river, over which passengers and baggage were transferred to the steamboats at the Kansas City landing, to the terminal depot of the then new Mis- souri Pacific Railroad, at the foot of Grand avenue, and the hotels and various sections of Kansas City, Missouri. This pontoon affair was the first wagon and foot bridge thrown across the Kansas river at Kansas City, and over it the troops crossed to fight the battle of Westport during Price's last raid. The bridge lasted but a few months, when it was swept away by a rise in the river. For a short time a ferry was used for transfer purposes ; then a new railroad built a spur from Armstrong, and a bridge which carried its rails over the river to a junction with the Missouri Pacific at the state line, where, in 1867, both roads joined in the erection of a hotel and station honse known as the State Line House. About the same time the Kansas Pacific established general offices within the building which now stands at the northwest corner of Sixth and Broadway in Kansas City, Missouri, and continued its occu- pation until 1881, when the road was consolidated with the Union Pacific. These were the first general railway offices here.
WHEN THE "K. P." REACHED LAWRENCE.
On the completion of the first forty miles of the Kansas Pacific, an excursion was run from Wyandotte to Lawrence. The following letter of invitation, one of which is in possession of V. J. Lane of Wyan- dotte, was sent out:
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"Dear Sir :- The government of the United States a little more than a year ago, with a wisdom looking far beyond the burdens and anxieties of the hour, provided aid for the construction of a railroad from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean. Stimulated by its liberality and by the spirit of American enter- prise, the work has been undertaken, and already the first section of forty miles is nearing completion. The opening of this section-giving earnest to the people of the country that within the time preseribed by law the great highway will be built to San Francisco, bringing into eloser union the states of the Atlantic and the Pacific. and offering to the industrial enterprises of our people the incalculable wealth of a continent-is an event worthy of commemoration by the leading men of America. You are respectfully invited to attend the celebration, and will be received by the committee if arrangements at Weston, Missouri, in the 18th day of August next, on the arrival of the morning train from the east. Upon the re- ceipt from you of an acceptance of this invitation, addressed to me at No. 58 Beaver street, New York, you will be furnished with a free pass to Kansas and return, good over alt the principal intermediate roads.
"Faithfully yours,
"SAMUEL HALLETT."
The accompanying card was worded as follows: "The Union Pacific Railway Company, Eastern Division, invite you to be present, as per letter of Mr. Samuel Hallett, to celebrate the opening of the first seetion of forty miles of their road west from the Missouri river."
THE ASSASSINATION OF HALLETT.
Shortly after the letter of invitation was issued Samuel Hallett was shot and killed in Wyandotte by O. A. Taleutt, chief engineer for the capitalists, and the career of the pioneer railroad builder was brought to a tragie end.
ITallett came to Leavenworth in the fall of 1863, and, having se- cured the right-of-way for a railroad previously granted under the territorial government to the Leavenworth, Pawnee & Lawrence Rail- road Company, he proposed to some of the capitalists of Leavenworth to put a railroad across the country, and received pledges for the under- taking. Work was begun at once, and a road was built to what is now known as the "Junction" on the Missouri Pacific, near Leavenworth. One anthority says that, calling for funds, Hallett was given the cold shoulder and told to go ahead with the road. This was in February, 1864. The Missouri Pacific was approaching Jefferson City, and Hallett saw that if ground could be broken at the mouth of the Kansas river for the beginning of the new road to be known as the Kansas Pacific, a connection between it and the Missouri Pacifie could be made more quickly and leave Leavenworth out in the cold. Quietly maturing his plans and contracts, he one morning began work without a soul in Wyandotte knowing of his intention beforehand.
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EXCITEMENT IN WYANDOTTE.
Word reached the city about 10 o'clock that morning that work had begun on a new railroad. Hundreds of citizens went down on foot and in carriages and found a hundred men at work, cutting an opening through the woods south of Armstrong. Wyandotte boiled over with excitement. Property went up one hundred per cent during the week. Hallett opened an office at the foot of Kansas avenne, and the streets were thronged with laboring men. By the middle of April more than a thousand laborers were employed. Sammel Hallett was general manager, his brother, John, was employed as superintendent, and an- other brother, Thomas, was an assistant. O. A. Talentt was chief engineer. About the middle of May, Samuel Hallett went to St. Louis and Chicago, leaving the office work with his brother John. It has been stated that soon after Hallett left, Talentt came in from the west- ern terminus of the road, and, drawing the amount of money due him, went to St. Louis, where he met Samuel Hallett and asked for more money, which was paid, in ignorance of the fact that the engineer had been settled with in full at the office.
HALLETT'S VISIT TO PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
One who has told the story says that, a week later, Samuel IFallett was called to Washington, and while conferring with President Lincoln about the road, Mr. Lineoln called his attention to a letter received from Talentt, in which it was claimed that Hallett was constructing a cheap road ; that the material was of the poorest kind; that the bridges would not hold up a year, and stamping Ilallett, in general, as a swindler. Mr. Ilallett is said to have made a showing of his contraet, and of the amount of work done, whereupon Mr. Lincoln is said to have declared that Taleutt "ought to be spanked." It is further stated that Mr. Ilallett mailed Taleutt's letter to the president to his brother John. A week later Talcutt returned to Wyandotte and went at once to Hallett's office.
John Hallett showed him the letter that he had sent to Washington and said "President Lincoln says you should be spanked and I am going to do it."
Being a big, two-fisted fellow, it is said John Hallett took Taleutt across his knee and summarily administered the spanking. Being released, Talcutt drew his revolver, but John Hallett's hand came down upon him again, and before he could make any successful attempt at resistance, his assailant had opened the door and hurled him through it into the middle of the street.
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EASTERN CAPITALISTS INTERESTED.
From Washington, Samuel Hallett went to New York, and raised a large capital for the Kansas Pacific, Thomas Durant representing it. On his return, he stopped at St. Louis and induced John D. Perry and others to invest. On his arrival at Wyandotte, a large and enthusiastie meeting was held, in which it was resolved to push forward the work. George Francis Train was one of the speakers.
The sudden death of Hallett was a serious blow to Wyandotte. It was elaimed by many. and has been by many denied, that a letter was found at Quindaro written to Talentt, from persons in Leavenworth, offering him money to kill Hallett. Be that as it may, Leavenworth felt chagrined over the boom at Wyandotte, and immediately after the beginning of work there by Hallett, it is said, a large delegation of prominent citizens of Leavenworth called on him and offered him large inducements to return there. Samuel Hallett was spoken of by many as a gentleman of culture, who made friends wherever he went. It is said that at one time he figured in London in stocks of some kind, and was arrested for debt. Later he negotiated loans in England and in Spain to build the Atlantic & Great Western Railway. Ilis family spent most of their time in Europe, and at the time of his death they were in Paris. Later they returned to Hornellsville, New York. His son, Samuel Hallett, Jr., eame to Wyandotte and married a sister of Ilon. E. L. Bartlett.
HALLETT A RAILWAY GENIUS.
There ean be no doubt that Hallett was a man of exceptional busi- ness capacity and success, but his methods have been called in question by some, and it has been claimed that he was not so blameless in the trouble with Taleutt as his friends would have had him appear.
Mr. John Speer, writing to the Topeka Commonwealth, said: "I think the story of President Lincoln showing Samuel Hallett a letter from Talentt in a familiar way is exceedingly thin. I do not think Taleutt ever wrote to the president, and if he had done so Hallett was not in the habit of walking into the executive chamber and familiarly reading Old Abe's letters. From memory, the circumstances, or rumors of them, were these: Mr. Taleutt was chief engineer of the Kansas Pacific, representing the capitalists-the principal of whom was John D. Perry, of St. Louis; or he may have represented Fremont, or both. IIallett. in his imperious way, had demanded that Talentt should make an official report of progress of the work entirely inconsistent with the truth, under oath, either to get the first subsidy of $16,000 a mile, for twenty miles, from the government, or to seeure more money from the capitalists by representations that the first donation of $320,000 was
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due. This Taleutt positively refused to do. Hallett left for Wash- ington, attempting to get the proof in some other way, but, when there, met a report of Talcutt in the proper department which entirely bloek- aded his little game. Samnel Hallett then telegraphed to Thomas IIallett to whip Talcutt. Tom Hallett, being a burly, stout man of two hundred pounds, and Talcutt a little feeble man of not over one hundred and twenty-five pounds, the former proceeded at once to chastise him, and gave him an unmerciful whipping.
LAID FOR HIS VICTIM.
Talentt awaited the arrival of Samuel Hallett, and "laid for him" with a rifle, and shot him dead in the street, just after he passed him. It was a deliberate, premeditated aet, but the whipping by Tom IIallett was unmerciful and undeserved. I do not believe there was any reason for the story that some one in Leavenworth hired him to do the deed, though that story was told at the time. If Taleutt had been tried at the time, with the evidence of his excited condition, amounting almost to insanity, and of this terrible provocation fresh in the publie mind. I. doubt if a jury could have been found to convict him.
FIRST COUNTY GRANT TO THE MISSOURI PACIFIC.
The first mention of a railroad in the records of Wyandotte county after it was organized was in 1865, as follows :
To the Board of County Commissioners of Wyandotte County, State of Kansas: The Missouri River Railroad Company, a corporation duly chartered and organized under and by virtue of the laws of the state of Kansas, has surveyed and located. and is about to construct and build a railroad from the state line between the states of Missouri and Kansas, at a point within the county of Wyandotte, to the city of Leavenworth, in the county of Leavenworth, and a portion of said line or road will pass through the county of Wyandotte; and the said com- pany now desire to procure the right-of-way, and to acquire title to the lands necessary for the construction of the said railroad. Now, therefore, the said company by the undersigned, the president thereof, and in pursuance of the statutes of the state of Kansas in such case made and provided, hereby apply to your honorable body to forthwith proceed to lay off the said road and the lands necessary for the same, its side tracks, turnouts, depots, water stations, etc., as surveyed by the engineer of the said company, and that you at the same time assess and appraise the damages to the owners of the land so to be taken and used for such railroad purposes, to the end that the said railroad company may obtain the possession, right of way and title to the lands necessary for the con- struction of said railroad.
"Signed by S. T. Smith, president."
"County commissioners' notice to lay off the route of the Missouri Railroad in the county of Wyandotte: Pursuant to the application of S. T. Smith, presi- dent of the Missouri River Railroad, made on the 13th day of November, A. D., 1865, the undersigned, the county commissioners of Wyandotte county, will at
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11 o'clock A. M., on the 18th day of December, A. D., 1865, proceed to lay off the route of the said railroad and the lands necessary for the same, its side tracks, its turnouts, depots, water stations, etc., as surveyed by the engineer of said company, and will at the same time appraise the damages to the owners of the lands so to be taken and used in said county, as provided in the statutes of the state of Kansas, in such cases made and provided.
"Signed by Francis Kessler and Joseph Grindle, chairman and members of the board."
The board of county commissioners eaused a notice to be published in the Wyandotte Commercial Gazette, a newspaper published in Wyan- dotte county, weekly, more than thirty days before December 26, 1865, and in pursuance of said notice, on the date mentioned, they proceeded to the point of intersection of the route of said Missouri River Railroad with the Eastern division of the Union Pacific Railroad, and thenee over the whole route of the proposed road to the western boundary of the Wyandotte reserve ; examined each tract and appraised and awarded the damages separately to each of the owners of lands through which the route had been surveyed, irrespective of any benefit to said owners from the construction of the railroad.
BUILDING THE SANTA FE.
The flurry of excitement caused in Wyandotte by the building west. along the Kansas river through Wyandotte county. of the Kansas Paeif- ie, and north along the Missouri river of the Missouri Pacifie, had not died out before a line was constructed along the south side of the Kan- sas river to the west. The Kansas City, Topeka & Western was the name which gave the great Santa Fe system its first start in this sec- tion. This company, incorporated in the seventies, succeeded to the rights of the Lawrence & Topeka and the Kansas Midland and built the stretch of sixty-six miles from Kansas City to Topeka to connect at that point with the Santa Fe which already had been constructed from Atchison across the state to the Colorado line. But instead of being a mere connection from this point to the main line, it really became the main line and the most important piece of track for traffic on the Santa Fe system. In a few years the Southern Kansas had threaded the south half of the state and extended down through the Indian country to Texas and the Gulf Coast, with lines to be operated as a part of the Santa Fe system. Then came the building of the air-line to Chicago, under the name of Chicago, Santa Fe and California, giving the Santa Fe system a line from the great lakes to the Pacific coast. And with the development of these came the building of the terminal in Wyan- dotte county reaching from Turner down through Argentine and Kan- sas City, Kansas, to the state line, and on in Kansas City, Missouri, to within a block or two of the Union depot.
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WIIEN THE MEMPHIS WAS BUILT.
In the spring of 1866 work was commenced on the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf Railroad at Rosedale and Kansas City. The line, with its terminals, was built along the Turkey Creek valley through Rosedale to Olathe, twenty-one miles, in that year. This was afterward ex- tended southeast through Fort Seott and Springfield and on to Memphis and Birmingham, and it became the shortest and most important line to the southeast and the port of New Orleans. A few years ago the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf became a part of the Frisco System as it is today.
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