USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I > Part 43
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"I propose to reserve ground for all sorts of roads, railway, plank, macadamized. More than that, room for a track by magnetic power, according to the idea stated, I believe by Professor Henry, and, to me, plausibly pursued by Professor Page, of the Patent Office, if that idea ripens into practicability, and who can undertake to say that any idea will not become practicable in the present ages.
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"An American road to India through the heart of our country will revive upon its line all the wonders of which we have read and eclipse them. The western wilderness from the Pacific to the Mississippi will start into life under its touch. A long line of cities will grow up. Existing cities will take a new start. The state of the world calls for a new road to India, and it is our destiny to give it, the last and greatest. Let us act up to the greatness of the occasion and show ourselves worthy of the extraordinary cir- cumstances in which we are placed by securing, while we can, an American road to India -central and national-for ourselves and our posterity, now and hereafter, for thousands of years to come."
Promotion of the First Missouri Railroad.
The Pacific railroad movement was born in St. Louis the year that flames swept the business district and 6,000 deaths from cholera decimated a population of 60.000. In May of that year Isaac H. Sturgeon introduced in the common council the resolution calling the national convention and in October the con- vention met. The movement reached the legislative stage in Congress thirteen years later while Missouri was under the Civil war cloud. Political expediency moved the line far to the northward of the city where the campaign of education for a transcontinental railroad had received its earliest and greatest impetus. Missouri not only lost the transcontinental railroad, but for many years saw it operated to its disadvantage.
Popular was the movement which led to the building of the first railroad for Missouri. Public meetings were held. A charter was obtained. At the meet- ing held on the 31st of January, 1850, the project passed beyond the stage of addresses and resolutions. Subscriptions were called for. James H. Lucas offered to be one of three to make up $100,000. John O'Fallon and Daniel D. Page promptly joined him. These gentlemen subscribed $33,000 each and tossed a coin to determine who should have the privilege of taking the odd $1,000. John O'Fallon won it. Thomas Allen, J. and E. Walsh, Joshua B. Brant and George Collier signed for $10,000 each. A subscription list was opened at the Merchants' Exchange and committees were appointed to canvass the several wards of the city. Within two weeks, before the middle of February, citizens of St. Louis had subscribed for stock in the Pacific railroad as it was then called to the amount of $319,000.
There were 165 contributors to the bonus of $96,950. These subscriptions were gifts outright, not for shares of stock. James H. Lucas headed the list with $11,000. Edward J. Gay gave $5,000. One of the subscribers was living until the spring of 1909-J. B. Gazzam, who was a member of the firm of Douglas, Gazzam & Co. The name of Peter Richard Kenrick appeared; the archbishop's contribution was $1,500.
As work progressed subscriptions continued to come in. The building of the Pacific railroad was a popular movement through the ten years before the Civil war. St. Louisans made overland journeys along the projected route and held mass meetings in the counties. In 1855 the individual subscriptions had reached nearly $1,000,000. The city of St. Louis had subscribed $500,000 and the county of St. Louis the same amount. The county of St. Louis had issued $875.000 in bonds to aid the construction. Actuated by the public spirit
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which attended every step in the building of the first railroad from St. Louis westward, the president of the company served the first year without salary. The next year he accepted a salary of $1,500. After that he resigned, arguing that change of presidents would contribute to maintain popular interest in the project. In four years of the decade beginning with 1850 the people of St. Louis subscribed $6,400,000 to four railroads. About one-half of this amount was voted in corporate capacity. The other half was subscribed by individuals. The four enterprises thus encouraged were the Missouri Pacific, the Iron Moun- tain, the North Missouri, now known as the Wabash, and the Ohio and Mis- sissippi, now the Baltimore and Ohio.
Ground Breaking Ceremonies.
The Fourth of July was ground breaking day for the first steam railroad out of St. Louis. Captain Henry Almstedt fired his national salute at sunrise. Shortly after seven o'clock, the military and the civic bodies began to report to Grand Marshal Thornton Grimsley on Fourth street. Flags were flying every- where-from the engine houses, the newspaper offices, the hotels, the business houses. Shortly after eight o'clock officials of the state, the governor and his staff wheeled into Washington avenue and the long column started for Mincke's ground on the edge of Chouteau's Pond just west of Fifteenth street. At the head of the procession were escorted officials of the state, the president, di- rectors and engineers of the Pacific railroad, the orator of the day, the judges and officials of the courts, the mayor, the aldermen and city officials and the editorial corps of St. Louis.
Then came the Grays and the Dragoons, and the Missouri Artillery, and the Yagers and the Swiss Guards. The fire department and a long line of civic societies followed. At the speakers' stand near the pond, the band played the Grand Pacific Railroad march which Mr. Balmer had composed for the day. Thomas Allen, the president of the company, told of the popular movement which had led up to the event they were celebrating. His estimate of the cost of the road from St. Louis to Kansas City and of the business it would do is interesting. He said: "We have found our distance across the state to be about 300 miles, and our grades easy, the maximum not exceeding forty-five feet to the mile and that occurring only on a short distance. The cost is estimated below the average cost of railroads, at about $20,000 per mile, or about $6,- 000,000 for the whole completed."
President Allen said that the investigation made indicated that the road the first year after completion would do passenger business of $457,900 and freight business of $470,200, a gross profit of fifteen per cent on $6,000,000. It was thought the cost of operation might be forty to fifty per cent of the gross earn- ings. When Mr. Allen concluded, a prologue in verse composed for the occasion by A. S. Mitchell, the newspaper man who had become secretary of the railroad company, was recited by J. M. Field, the brilliant writer and actor. Edward Bates delivered the oration of the day. He dwelt upon the resources and pos- sibilities of the Mississippi valley, but before he finished he emphasized the ambition of these first Missouri railroad builders: "But whither does it tend ? When you have constructed the road to the frontier of the Missouri, what power
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can stop it there? Beyond lie the extended plains of the Missouri and the Ar- kansas, New Mexico, Utah, California, Oregon, the Pacific and the old Eastern World."
The governor of the state, Austin A. King, was prevented by illness from being present. To the mayor of St. Louis, Luther M. Kennett, fell the duty of throwing the first dirt. President Allen presented the spade. Saying he would proceed "to make the first cut in the line of the Pacific railroad," the mayor, with the band playing the "Governor's March," led the way to the edge of the pond and began to dig. As the first dirt was thrown the crowd cheered lustily.
As they walked home from that breaking of ground for the first railroad out of St. Louis, James E. Yeatman asked John O'Fallon :
"Colonel, do you think it will pay?"
"No," said Colonel O'Fallon, with deliberation; "not in my time. Perhaps not in yours. Eventually it will be profitable."
Colonel O'Fallon was one of the largest subscribers to the stock of the orig- inal company. He had made his investment with the conclusion that he would not see financial returns from it. After a little pause he resumed the conversa- tion :
"Mr. Yeatman," he said, "you will please not mention the amount of my subscription."
Railroad Red Letter Days.
From 1850 to 1860 every beginning of a new railroad and completion of a division and every progressive step of consequence in railroad building was cele- brated with enthusiasm. When the North Missouri, now the Wabash, was built to St. Charles there was celebration. When ground was broken in 1852 at Han- nibal for the Hannibal and St. Joseph, now the Burlington, a boat load of St. Louisans went up to the barbecue. In those days all men of affairs in Missouri . were holders of railroad stock. They subscribed because it was considered a civic duty. At the opening of the Missouri Pacific to Hermann, ladies attended the feast. When the old North Missouri extension from Macon to Iowa was started Mrs. Isaac H. Sturgeon lifted the first shovel of dirt.
Notable days for St. Louis were those of 1852 and 1853 when the first rail- road went into operation. On the first day of December, 1852, the first loco- motive whistle west of the Mississippi river sounded at seven o'clock in the morning. The locomotive stood on the Pacific railroad track just west of Four- teenth street. Thomas Allen, president of the Pacific, T. S. O'Sullivan, Mr. Copp, secretary of the company; William R. Kingsley, and a few others con- nected with the road climbed on board for the initial trip. Charles Williams, the machinist, operated the engine. The train was run out to the end of the track laying a short distance beyond the Tower Grove crossing. This was the be- ginning of railroad operation in Missouri.
A little later St. Louis celebrated the formal opening of the first completed section. The directors of the company, members of the legislature who were passing through St. Louis on their way to Jefferson City and a few others were invited to have what was for many of them their first experience in "riding on the rail." The section of road then opened was from the St. Louis terminus to
A MISSOURI PACK TRAIN TO SANTA FE, 1820
TERMINUS OF OLD SANTA FE TRAIL
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Sulphur Springs as it was then called-afterwards Cheltenham. Two coaches were occupied by the guests. The. distance traveled was about five miles. At Sulphur Springs lunch was served and speeches of congratulation were made. Mayor Kennett, Edward Bates and James H. Lucas made speeches. "For a new road, we may say advisedly that there is not a better built road in the Union," the paper commented next morning.
A St. Louis-Made Locomotive.
The next railroad red letter day for St. Louis was the 19th of July, 1853, when twelve passenger cars carried over 600 official guests out to Franklin, as it was then called, to celebrate the opening of the first division, thirty-nine miles long. A couple of months before that the road had been put in regular operation to Kirkwood, named after the first chief engineer. The board of directors had resolved that "the fare for passengers from this time forth is not to exceed three cents per mile, with proper and liberal deduction for in and out passengers." The board also ordered that trains should stop at "Rock Spring, Cheltenham, about five miles; the River des Peres, a little beyond Sutton's; and Webster col- lege, which is two and one-half miles this side of Kirkwood." The St. Louis Grays, with Jackson's band of the regular army accompanied the excursion train to Franklin, now Pacific. Franklin consisted of a depot building in a forest of large trees. Those passengers who had watches timed the journey from St. Louis and expressed their agreeable surprise that the time, allowance being made for all stops, was one hour and fifty-nine minutes. Newspaper history preserves the comment that this was considered "a fair speed for a new, par- tially unballasted and untried road." After the banquet there were speeches, of course. One of the most significant was made by Luther M. Kennett, who congratulated the audience that the cars were of St. Louis manufacture and "drawn by a locomotive made in St. Louis and by St. Louis mechanics, Palm and Robertson, to whose enterprise and public spirit the company and the citizens of St. Louis generally are indebted for so important a movement toward our city's advancement to wealth and prosperity." The cost of the construc- tion of the thirty-nine miles Mr. Kennett stated had been "a trifle over $1,- 600,000." The Missouri Pacific was completed to Kansas City in the fall of 1865.
It is told of one Missourian that when he was called upon by railroad pro- moters to donate right of way across his farm he replied: "Take it; gentlemen; take all you want-everything I have if necessary; only leave me my wife and children." When railroad building was new in Missouri, a farmer who was in town heard some one say the construction gang was about ready to lay rails. He hunted up the superintendent and asked if the company wanted 3,000 good, sound white oak rails.
In the zeal to push railroad enterprises across the state, bonds were issued when the markets were depressed. To the Iron Mountain railroad the state gave aid in the sum of $3,501,000. Some of these bonds sold as low as 67. The $3,000,000 of Hannibal & St. Joe bonds sold for $567,304.94 less than par. The discount on $4,350,000 North Missouri bonds was about $560,000. The only
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state bonds issued to help railroad building which brought par were those for the Platte railroad.
Overland Mail by Stage and Rail.
The arrival of the first overland mail made the 10th of October, 1858, a notable day for St. Louis. When the Missouri Pacific train steamed into the Seventh street station, there was great cheering from the assembled crowd. John Butterfield stepped from a car. He was overwhelmed with congratulations. The Hon. John F. Darby delivered an address of welcome. Butterfield responded. The mail was escorted to the postoffice on Third and Olive streets and with ceremony delivered to the postmaster. It had come through from San Francisco in twenty-four days, twenty hours and thirty-five minutes, a great achievement for that period. Previously the mail service between the Pacific coast and the states had been by way of the Isthmus of Panama. Shorter time was demanded. The government established the overland mail with Butterfield as agent. The first mail stage left San Francisco September 16, 1858. The route was from San Francisco to Los Angeles, 462 miles in 80 hours ; to Yuma, 282 miles in 72 hours. 20 minutes; to Tucson, 280 miles in 71 hours, 20 minutes ; to Franklin, 360 miles in 82 hours ; to Colbert's Ferry on Red river, 2821/2 miles in 65 hours, 25 minutes ; to Fort Smith, 192 miles in 38 hours; to Tipton, Missouri, the rail- road terminus, 3181/2 miles in 48 hours, 55 minutes ; to St. Louis by railroad, 160 miles in II hours, 40 minutes.
The builders of the Pacific, now the Missouri Pacific, decided on five and one-half feet as their gauge. The minority protested and urged the adoption of the gauge of George Stephenson, which was becoming general in the eastern states-four feet, eight and one-half inches. This was met by the unanswerable argument that the Mississippi would never be bridged at St. Louis and the city might with entire safety adopt its own railroad gauge. Within a little more than a decade, the bridge was in course of construction. St. Louis was agitated over suggestions of methods to reduce the Missouri Pacific to standard gauge -four feet, eight and one-half inches. Daniel R. Garrison-in railroad circles they called him "Old Dan," because there was a nephew Daniel-found the way. And when the thing was done the whole city marveled at the ease of it. The conditions were economy and minimum of interference with business. In a single day the 300 or more miles of track was reduced from five feet, six inches to the standard. Only one rail was moved inward. Before that was started, the track layers drove the new inner line of spikes into the ties the entire dis- tance. Early one morning the tracklayers drew the old inner line of spikes, moved the rail inward against the new line of spikes and fastened it there. The road was ready for operation before night.
Pioneer Railroad Building.
John David Foote was fifteen years old when he began railroad building in Missouri. That was in 1857. True to this state of steady habits, Mr. Foote was still a railroad man living in northwest Missouri fifty-three years afterwards. He recalled some of those pioneer experiences in Missouri railroad grading, first trains, and big snow storms:
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"I commenced driving team on construction when I was fifteen. Each teamster looked after two carts and two horses. Ox teams hauled the grading plows through the cuts. Twenty-five cents a day and board was my wage. The men who did the shoveling got 50 cents a day and board. The first contract I worked on was a mile west of Stewarts- ville. I was only a little fellow then and it was hard for me to handle the harness on the big mules. So Tom Martin, the contractor, told Mike Shay to make me 'jigger boss.' The 'jigger boss' was the fellow who handed out the reg'lars to the boys on the work. It was an old-fashioned whisky, strong enough to burn a cut through the hills, as well as a plow, if they'd only thought of using it that way. All the laborers were Irishmen, great, brawny fellows, ready for a scrap or frolic on any occasion, and they'd think a contractor was walking on the constitution of the country if he didn't give 'em their jiggers when they got dry, which was some frequent.
"Mike Fox was working a team on the dump one day when it came time to minister to him. It seems he had got a pretty good jag on before I came along, but I didn't know that. When I poured out the usual allowance Mike put his big fingers around the cup so it would hold more and put away his double-jigger at a swallow. Next thing I knew Mike, his horse and cart were rolling bumpety-bump down the high embankment. Finally they landed at the bottom and Mike found himself sitting down amid the wreck. "'Johnnie,' he called out, 'would you moind fetching yez jigger down here-I don't believe I can get up there.'
"But that ended my job as jigger boss. They blamed Mike's mishap on me, and appointed a man who had the firmness to say no when the applicant already had enough.
When Liberty Celebrated.
ยท "When they were laying the track on the Cameron and Kansas City branch, as it was then called, in August, 1867, the people of Liberty were so anxious to get the road com- pleted there as soon as possible that they made a contract to pay the company a large bonus if the rails were laid and spiked by a certain date. We were rushing hard, but 6 o'clock on the last day found us with still three-quarters of a mile to go, and the time would be out at midnight. Mr. Weed was superintendent, and he was some worked up over that bonus. He told us we had to get in before the clock struck 12, if the boiler bust. To make it worth while he promised us double pay that night, and said every saloon in Liberty would entertain us free from midnight on till morning, they having been prepared for the occasion. You know in those days there weren't any temperance societies, and they didn't make such a hullabaloo about drinking as they do now. Most everybody drank, more or less.
"Scattered along the right-of-way were headlights and lanterns for the men to work by. And we did work, I tell you! We thought that track had to be in there on time, or the world would come to an end. You never saw such a busy crowd. The people came out to watch as we got near town, and when the last spike was driven against the rail that marked the end the crowd cheered like they do when they elect their man President. The job was finished before 12, and the town run wide open the balance of the night.
"When the engine came along, pushing its car of rails, spikes, etc., it was the first time a great many people there had ever seen a railroad train. The engine whistled and the bell was rung until everybody in town was aroused, and soon the entire population came down to the track to see what was going on, and to lend a hand in the cheering.
The First Train from St. Joe to Easton.
"While I was working on construction I got to see many sights like that. The advent of the railroad was the biggest sort of thing that could happen, same as a passenger air- ship would be now, I reckon. When the first train was run out of St. Joe to Easton they had a big picnic and barbecue. The engineer and fireman-two heroes of the occasion -went over to the grounds to get their dinner, and when they came back their little engine-little as compared with the engines of today-was surrounded by men, women and children, curiously peering under at the works and everything they could see. The crowd was so thick that many were forced in close. It must have been a suggestion of
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the Old Nick that prompted the engineer to climb aboard and let loose a wild volley of shrieks from the whistle. In a second pandemonium had spread her wings and was tumbling the people about like corks in a gale. The engine hadn't budged an inch, but they supposed when they heard that fearful noise it would certainly do something, and none wanted to take chances on which way it might take a notion to go. I thought that engineer ought to have been stood on his head in his own tank; he just leaned out of his window and laughed till the tears run down his cheeks. Some of the people didn't stop running till they got way back in the woods. The effect on 'em was about the same as if a platoon of soldiers had fired directly at 'em. You see, an engine was an uncanny thing then, and people thought they were liable to blow up at any time, just like a racing steamboat.
"The worst snow I have any recollection of occurred about thirty years ago. It was accompanied by a hurricane, which filled the big cuts to a depth of eight feet and more. About one hundred and fifty men were put to work with shovels on the snow west of Cameron. We started in Saturday night and worked all day Sunday and far into Monday without a rest. There was a long, high embankment, swept clean by the wind, and then a long, deep cut, in which the snow was deep and compact. There were five engines coupled together, waiting to butt through, but first we dug large holes to the track about fifty feet apart, so as to give the engines a 'foothold.' Every pound of steam was crowded on when the signal was given, and the train of engines came on like a hurricane, cleaving the snow like the prow of a battleship and sending a spray fifty feet in the air. And that without a snowplow, just the naked engine. The distance was about a quarter of a mile, and though they slowed down considerably, they managed to pull through. The head engine butted its stack and headlight off, and the engineer couldn't get out of his cab until they dug the snow out of the gangway. It was sure a Santa Claus string of engines when that job was done."
Beginnings of Systems.
The Hannibal & St. Joseph railroad, the first to cross Missouri, started at . Hannibal in the office of John H. Clemens, father of Mark Twain. This meeting was held at Hannibal in the spring of 1846. Z. G. Draper was chosen president, and R. F. Lakenan, secretary. At the next session of the legislature, in 1847, the charter was obtained. Then followed enthusiastic meetings and conventions all along the proposed route. And then the movement slumbered until 1850. In 1851 the legislature began the voting of bonds on condition that the company raise and expend corresponding amounts. The counties and the towns voted bonds. That was the method of railroad financing in Missouri be- fore the war. In the fall of 1851 ground was broken at Hannibal with a great procession, much oratory and bell ringing and cannon firing. The next year Congress voted 600,000 acres of good land in aid of the road. Contracts were let but construction dragged. It was not until February 13, 1859, that the first through train ran. The rate was five cents a mile and some times more for pas- sengers. The road was known in Missouri as "Old Reliable." The Hannibal & St. Joe was started from both ends. It was completed in Mumpower's field two miles east of Chillicothe at seven o'clock in the morning of February 13. The junction of the two ends was celebrated by the transportation of several barrels of water from the Mississippi at Hannibal to St. Joseph where the bar- rels were emptied into the Missouri. This, as the orator said, typified the union of the two great water courses of the American continent.
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