History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 47

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358

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road Company by which a branch road from Rood- house, Ill., to Louisiana, on the Mississippi River, was built, and at the same time the charter and franchises of the Louisiana and Missouri River Railroad Com- pany were transferred to the Chicago and Alton Rail- road Company. This latter charter contemplated the construction of a road two hundred and sixteen miles in length (with a branch from Mexico to Cedar City, fifty miles in length), to a point opposite Jefferson City. The road from Louisiana to Mexico, Mo., was opened in the year 1871-72, from Mexico to Fulton March 6, 1872, and from Cedar City to Fulton in July of the same year. Legal difficulties intervened to prevent the construction of the contemplated line from Louisiana to Kansas City, and arrangements were made with the St. Louis, Kansas City and Northern Railroad for traffic and passenger transportation over the road of the latter company from Mexico, Mo., to Kansas City, and for running passenger-trains on the line via Bloomington, Roodhouse, Louisiana, and Mexico, Mo., between Chicago and Kansas City. In 1878 the formation of an independent company to be controlled by the Chicago and Alton Company was effected, to build the Missouri extension from Mexico, Mo., to Kansas City. The corporate name of this company is the Kansas City, St. Louis and Chicago Railroad Company. Its road was opened through on the 1st of May, 1879.

The Chicago and Alton Road, main line, extends to Chicago, making connection there with the great number of roads running to the north and east. The Missouri Division uses the main line to Rood- house. The length of the main lines east of the river and all in the State of Illinois, including branches, is five hundred and sixty-seven miles. This road is now in the twenty-first year of its ex- istenee, and, ineluding side traeks, is one thousand and seventy miles in length east and west of the river. It forms a triple link between the cities of Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City, and there is a branch from Dwight to Washington, Ill., 86.96 miles in length. Very nearly the entire road has been relaid with steel rails within the past few years. The line traverses rich seetions of country, and has a splendid freight and passenger business.

In 1877 the Chicago and Alton Company built a bridge aeross the Mississippi at Louisiana.

The directors of the Chicago and Alton Railroad Company are T. B. Blackstone, John B. Drake, Chi- eago, Ill .; Morris K. Jesup, New York ; John F. Slater, Norwich, Conn. ; George Straut, Peoria, Ill. ; James C. McMullin, John Crerar, Chicago ; Lorenzo Blackstone, Norwich, Conn. ; John J. Mitehell, St.

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HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

Louis. The president of the company is T. B. Blackstone, Chicago. The Louisiana and Missouri River Railroad, extending from Louisiana, Mo., to Cedar City, Mo., a distance of 100.80 miles, was chartered in 1865, completed in July, 1872, and lcased in perpetuity to the Chicago and Alton Rail- road Company from Aug. 1, 1870. R. P. Tanscy, St. Louis, is president of the company, and W. W. Pope, St. Louis, is secretary and treasurer.

The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company had its origin in the organization in 1849 of the Aurora Branch Railroad Company, and the construction of a railroad from Aurora to Gencva. In 1852 the Chicago and Aurora Railroad Company was organized, and built the road from Chicago to Aurora. In 1856 this latter road was consolidated with the Central Military Tract Railroad Company, which owned the road from Mendota to Galesburg, the new company being known as the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company. The Northern Cross Railroad Company, owning a line between Galesburg and Quincy, became embarrassed, and was purchased in 1860 by the Chicago, Burling-

ton and Quincy. The Pcoria and Aquatoka Rail- road, which was purchased in 1862, gave the com- pany a line from Peoria to East Burlington, with a terminus on the Mississippi River. In 1862 the company built the line from Gates City to Lewiston, and in 1868 the road from Lewiston to Rushville, under the charter of the Peoria and Hannibal Rail- road Company. The Dayton, Peoria and Hannibal Railroad Company's eharter was obtained about the same time. From Galva to New Boston and Keiths- burg, the road was built under the charters of the American Central and of the Dixon and Quincy Rail- road Companies, and leased by the Chieago, Burling- ton and Quincy. The Fox River Line was built under the charter of the Ottawa, Oswego and Fox River Valley Railroad Company, and leased by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy. The road from Mendota to East Clinton was built by the Illinois Grand Trunk Railroad Company, and leased by the Chicago, Bur- lington and Quincy. By the lease of the Chicago and Iowa Railroad by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy the Chicago and Rock River Railroad was reached, and by the lease of the Quincy and Warsaw Railroad and of the Carthage and Burlington Rail- road the line from Quincy to Burlington was obtained, while the Keokuk and St. Paul Railroad Company opened the trade and travel of Keokuk to the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy. The Quincy Division, from Quincy to East Louisiana, was built by the Quincy, Alton and St. Louis Railroad Company, and was

lcased to the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy in 1876. The St. Louis, Rock Island and Chicago, built under the charter of the Rockford, Rock Island and St. Louis Railroad Company, and leased in 1876 to the Chicago, Burlington and Quiney, cxtends from the Chicago and Northwestern, ncar Sterling, to Rock Island, and thence to St. Louis.

The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad was consolidated with the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy in 1872, and became the Iowa Division. During 1881 a number of extensions and new lines of road werc built in Missouri, Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, and Colo- rado.

The St. Louis Division of the great Burlington Road consists of the old Rockford, Rock Island and St. Louis Railroad, two hundred and forty-seven miles in length, to Rock Island, and conncets St. Louis with the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy system, with two thousand five hundred and eighty-six miles of road in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Colo- rado. The St. Louis Division was opened up in 1877. Previous to that time the Burlington had no line of its own into St. Louis, though it had good connections. From St. Louis a through linc is formed in connection with the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern and Minneapolis and St. Paul Roads to points in the Nortlı- west. Via Rock Island and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul a line is formed for all Missouri River and Wisconsin points, Manitoba, Montana, and Idaho. The Denver extension of the Burlington was completed July 1, 1882, and it is the only one of the lines from St. Louis which has its own track to that city. It penetratcs the most fertile portions of Nebraska, and has opened up a seetion of country the trade of which ought to be very valuable to the merchants and manu- facturers of St. Louis if thic proper efforts are put for- ward to secure it.

The south end of the St. Louis Division of the Bur- lington passes through a rich whcat country. North of Vermont, Ill., the corn country along the line is reached and cxtends on through Illinois and Iowa, and in that section arc also the great dairy farms of the West. This road brings over four million pounds of butter to St. Louis annually in its refrigerator-cars. The business both in and out of St. Louis is rapidly increasing.

The president of the company is C. E. Perkins, Burlington, Iowa; First Vice-President, A. E. Ton- zalin, Boston ; Second Vice-President and Treasurer, J. C. Peasley, Chicago ; Third Vice-President and General Manager, T. J. Potter, Chicago. Officers of the St. Louis Division : Superintendent, W. R. Crump- ton, St. Louis ; Freight and Passenger Agent, W. D.

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RAILROADS.

Sanborn, St. Louis; Master-Mechanie, A. Forsyth, Beardstown, Ill.

The Texas and St. Louis Railway Company was organized on the 14th of April, 1879, as the successor of the Tyler Tap Railroad, and the road was opened to Trinity, one hundred and eighty-one miles, at the elose of 1880. It was extended to Corsieana, a dis- tanee of two hundred and three miles, on the 1st of April, 1881, and to Waco, two hundred and sixty miles, Sept. 1, 1881. The company purelased the Little River Valley and Arkansas Railroad in Mis- souri, and organized under the name of the Texas and St. Louis Railway Company of Arkansas and Missouri, to build a railroad from Texarkana to Cairo, the objeet being to run through ears from Bird's Point, opposite Cairo, Ill., to Gatesville, Texas, a distance of seven hundred and thirty-two miles. On the 29th of May, 1882, the company effected a traffie alliance with the Illinois Central Railroad and the St. Louis, Alton and Terre Haute, commonly known as the Cairo Short Line, by which those companies agreed to interehange business and operate their respective roads as one line. Under this agreement the company is enabled to run its trains into St. Louis and Chicago. On the 16th of May, 1882, a similar arrangement was effeeted with the Arkansas Midland and the Batesville and Brink- ley Railroad Companies, by the terms of which those companies agreed to change their gauge from three feet six inches to three feet and to complete their lines to their respective termini. This agreement secures to the Texas and St. Louis Company a line into Little Rock and Helena, Ark., and also to Augusta, Newport, Jacksonport, and Batesville, in the White River valley. Arrangements were also made to ex- tend the line from Waco to Laredo, and to construet a branch from Mount Pleasant to Dallas, Texas.

The road is known as the " Cotton Belt" route, and is a most important addition to the railroad interests of St. Louis. The project originated among the cotton men of St. Louis, who saw an opportunity to penetrate one of the richest cotton belts in the South and draw the staple to the St. Louis market. With the exception of a gap of forty-five miles to be filled in Arkansas, this road has a continuous track between Bird's Point, Mo. (opposite Cairo, Ill.), and Gates- ville, Texas, or a distance of seven hundred and fifty- two miles. There is a branch from New Madrid, Mo., to Malden, the county-seat of Dunklin, the " banner" cotton-producing county of Missouri, and also pro- ducing a large amount of corn. A branch will soon be constructed to Dallas, Texas, and as soon as the forces can be transferred from Arkansas the extension through Texas to Laredo, on the Rio Grande, will be

pushed along as fast as men and money ean accomplish it. When the road reaches Laredo a connection will be formed with a narrow-gauge road which will be running into the city of Mexico by that time,-the Mexican National. From Texarkana the road runs parallel with the Iron Mountain Railway through Ar- kansas, and divides the country between it and the Mississippi River. While the richest eotton counties are traversed, there are also along the route some of the heaviest and best timber forests to be found in the United States. In Arkansas and Texas there have already been over fifty saw-mills started along the linc of the narrow-gauge ; new towns are being established, and immigration is pouring into the counties through which the road passes.

From Cairo the connection is made by change of trucks with the Cairo Short Line, over which road the freight will be transported to East St. Louis. During the past year a large and substantial brick building was put up at East St. Louis and supplied with the machinery necessary to establish there a cotton compress, the total cost of which was two hun- dred thousand dollars. This press will receive and handle the staple from along the narrow-gauge line, and it is expected that the cotton trade of St. Louis will be largely increased by the receipts over the Texas and St. Louis and Cairo Short Line roads.

The earnings during 1881 amounted to $198,039.90, and the expenses to $166,237.49. The company has a land grant of 10,240 aeres to each mile of eom- pleted road, and capital stock is provided for at the rate of $10,000 per mile ; funded debt, first mortgage six per cent. thirty-year bonds, dated June 1, 1880, interest June and December, $10,000 per mile ; land grant and ineome six per cent. thirty-year bonds, dated June 1, 1880, $10,000 per mile, interest pay- able if earned. Up to April 1, 1882, there had been issued $2,660,000 first mortgage bonds, $2,660,000 ineome bonds, and $2,660,000 of stock, a total of $7,980,000. On the Missouri and Arkansas Division bonds were issued upon 160 miles of road at $10,000, or $1,600,000 first mortgage, and the same amount of ineome bonds.

The officers of the company are : Directors, J. W. Paramore, W. M. Senter, J. L. Sloss, St. Louis ; L. H. Roots, Little Rock, Ark .; T. R. Bonner, L. B. Fish, Tyler, Texas; L. C. De Morse, Texarkana, Ark .; T. J. Lowe, Gilmer, Texas; C. M. Seley, Waco, Texas. President, J. W. Paramore, St. Louis ; Vice-President, W. M. Senter, St. Louis; Treasurer, L. B. Fish; Secretary, C. T. Bonner; General Freight and Ticket Agent, G. W. Lilley, all of Tyler, Texas ; Master of Machinery, G. W. Preseott,

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HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

St. Louis ; General Superintendent, J. B. Van Dyne, Tyler, Texas ; Chief Engineer, C. F. Stephens, Pine Bluff; Purchasing Agent, F. W. Paramore, St. Louis ; Master of Car Repairs, W. J. Lewis, Tyler, Texas. The principal office of the company is at St. Louis.

Col. James W. Paramore, president of the Texas and St. Louis Railway Company, was born near Mans- field, Ohio, Dec. 27, 1830,-a farmer's son and the tenth of a family of eleven children. He early dc- termined to secure a college education, and as his father was only in moderate eireumstances, he decided that it should be obtained at his own expense. After some debate his father gave his consent, on condition that he should relinquish his share of the paternal estate. At seventeen he prepared for college at Mans- field Academy, and then went through Granville Col- lege (now Denuison University), graduating in the class of '52 with high honors. During this entire period he supported himself by his own labor. He then taught two years in the Montgomery (Ala.) Academy, and studied law in the office of Bortley & Kirkwood, at Mansfield, Ohio. Mr. Bortley was af- terwards elected supreme judge, and also became Gov- ernor, while Mr. Kirkwood moved to Iowa, and be- eame Governor and United States senator, and was a member of President Garfield's cabinet.

Young Paramore then attended the Albany Law School, graduating in 1855 as Bachelor of Laws, and subsequently opened a law-office at Cleveland, and made an excellent beginning. A disastrous eommer- eial speculation, however, in 1857, induced him to seek a new field in the West, and he settled at Wash- ington, Mo., where, in addition to condueting a prom- ising law business, he published the Washington Ad- vertiser, a local paper of fair eireulation and influence.

Upon the breaking out of the war he returned with his family to Ohio, and promptly responded to the call for troops, becoming major in the Third Ohio Cavalry, and serving under Buell, Rosecrans, and Thomas, in the Armies of the Ohio and the Cum- berland. He participated in twenty-seven engage- ments (many of them very severe ones), without, however, receiving a wound. He was very popular and efficient as an officer, and after the battle of Stone River was promoted to the coloneley of the regiment over the lieutenant-colonel and the senior major, and for a considerable period commanded the Second Cavalry Brigade.

In 1864 he resigned from the army and engaged successfully in business at Nashville, Tenn. In 1867 he turned his attention to railroading, and obtained a charter for the Tennessee and Pacific Railroad, a link designed to connect the Southern Pacific with

the Atlantic waters at Norfolk, Va. Under the stimulus of liberal aid from the State, a portion of the line was completed, but unfriendly legislation followed and the work was suspended. As superin- tendent, ete., Col. Paramore continued to operate the finished portion until, the adoption of the new Consti- tution forbade any further hope of help from the State, and then he sold his interests and removed to St. Louis, attraeted by the grand capabilities of the eity. He here began to urge upon others the possibil- ities of St. Louis becoming a great cotton market, but generally his ideas were declared to be Utopian. The Iron Mountain Railroad had just been completed into the cotton belt, and his quick perception grasped the idea that this highway, extending into the very heart of the cotton-producing region of Arkansas and Texas (the finest in the world), opened a new enterprise for St. Louis and made it possible to establish here one of the leading cotton markets of the world. To accom- plish this two things were requisite: 1. Reasonable transportation charges to St. Louis, which were readily coneeded by Mr. Allen, the president of the Iron Moun- tain Railroad; and 2. The reduction of the expense of handling the staple to the lowest possible figures. The latter could be accomplished only by the use of machinery more powerful than had been previously considered necessary. Chiefly through his labors the Cotton Compress Company was formed in 1873, with himself as president. It started with seventy-five thousand dollars, but now has one million two hun- dred and fifty thousand dollars paid-up capital, and maintains the largest and most convenient warehouses for handling cotton in the world. The company oe- eupies about eighty acres of land, and has a hand- ling capacity of fully five hundred thousand bales of cotton a year, and a compressing capacity of three thousand bales daily.

Col. Paramore was president of the company, and the architect of all the buildings and compresses that now comprise this magnificent system of handling cotton, which (by the way) is being copied by other cotton markets of the country.

This was the pioneer of other establishments of a similar character, and the result of Col. Paramore's prompt and far-sighted action has been to place the cotton trade of St. Louis on a substantial basis. From an average of 28,575 bales from 1866 to 1873 it has risen to 480,028 bales in 1879-80, and 402,706 bales in 1880-81.

In such esteem were Col. Paramore's services in this respect held, that in December, 1880, the busi- ness men of St. Louis presented him with a silver service, accompanied by the following letter :

Ir Paramore

LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF QUINDIS.

1199

RAILROADS.

" MR. J. W. PARAMORE :

" Dear Sir,-By this testimonial we desire to express our high regard for your character as a friend, and to offer our tribute of admiration for the rare ability you have shown in the successful management of the large business enterprise under your control. To you more than to any other person is due the eredit for ereet- ing tho eompress warehouses, by which a flourishing trade in cotton was ereated; and to you, also, should be aeeorded espe- eial praise for your untiring efforts to build a railroad into Texas, that our eommeree with that State might be increased and forever secured. Not alone as a leader in these enterprises have you manifested that eonsummate skill and courageous, in- domitable energy which have marked your eonduet as a business man, but in every useful measure with which you wore eoneerned, whether for the publie good or for private gain, you have always shown the fidelity and disinterested zeal of a true friend and benefactor. Please accept this solid silver service as being the token of our esteem commemorative of your career."

While studying the cotton question, Col. Paramore observed that in Arkansas, Texas, Southern Kansas, and the Indian country there was a region capable of producing more than two million bales of cotton ycarly legitimately tributary to St. Louis, but with no eco- nomical means of reaching a market, and he conceived the system of roads known as the " Cotton Belt Route" to penetrate this region. In the fall of 1881 he rc- signed the presideney of the Cotton Compress Com- pany, and has cver sinee given his undivided attention to the prosecution of this great work. It is a system of narrow-gauge railroads, extending from Cairo, Ill., to Laredo, Texas, with "feeders" at various points, embracing, when completed, over one thousand five hundred miles of railroads, and penetrating a section of the Southwest unrivaled for the raising of cotton and miscellaneous produce. At Laredo the system con- nects with the road now building under the " Palmer- Sullivan concession" through Mexico, and at Cairo it has an extremely advantageous traffic contract with the Illinois Central Railroad, by which, as previously stated, it makes direct connection with St. Louis, and also Chicago and all Eastern cities.

horse load ?" In other words, why maintain broad- gauge roads when narrow-gauge will answer the same purpose ?

In his investigation of the matter, Col. Paramore has come to the most important conclusions, if true. He not only elaims the absolute ceonomy of a three- feet gauge road, but he believes that such a road, with a debt limited to the expense of building and oper- ating, can hold in check the vast railway monopolies already in existence, with their roads bonded for many times their value. It must be apparent that a railway whose fixed charges for interest do not ex- cced six hundred dollars per mile, and which if sub- stantially built ean be worked for 33} per cent. of its gross earnings, can afford to give lower rates, both for freight and passenger traffic, than one whose fixed in- tcrest charges are twelve hundred to fifteen hundred dollars per mile annually, and which, under the most favorable circumstances, cannot be worked for much less than sixty per cent. of its gross earnings.

There seems little room to doubt the correctness of Col. Paramore's belief that this system of railways will effeetually protect the people of the South against the concentrating tendencies of the great broad-gauge roads. In the judgment of Col. Paramore the nar- row-gauge railroad is the one upon which the future business of the country will be done; the present standard gauge must ultimately give way before it, sinee it cmbraces economy in construction and econ- omy in operation, and lessens immensely the cost of moving the products of the farmer and manufac- turer. There is also the important consideration that such roads, properly managed, will always be able to respond to the popular cry of cheap transportation, and will effectually spike the guns of those who are demanding that " government should lay its iron hand on the railroads and undertake to regulate their charges."

It is not by chance that Col. Paramore has selected Upon the subject of cheap transportation Col. Paramore holds novel and striking views, contrary to the belief generally entertained by the people in the Mississippi valley, viz., " that railroad transportation is cheaper than river." While others have proclaimed the Mississippi to be " God's great highway for com- merce," he views it as merely a great " national sewer," and says that to man has been left the labor of providing " cheap and rapid transportation" by the construction of railroads. He energetieally insists that, as a matter of fact, cotton can to-day be shipped from Arkansas and Texas via St. Louis to Europe cheaper than from the gulf port eities. the three-feet gauge for his system of railroads. His is a strong, analytical mind, and before engaging in any enterprise he is accustomed to give it a thorough and exhaustive study from cvery stand-point. Hc close the three-fcet gauge, not on grounds of present expedieney merely, but in the firm belief that this system is the one best adapted to the South, and must erowd the old " broad-gauge" roads to the wall. He argues that since the product of about eighty aeres of cotton may be carried in one ear, while only five to ten aeres of the staple produets of the North arc re- quired to fill a car, the South does not need the heavy and expensive system of broad-gauge railroads. He This discussion illustrates very forcibly the original asks, " Why send a four-horse wagon to bring a two- and striking methods of thought that characterize

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HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

Col. Paramore. Whether his conclusions agree with those of previous investigators in the same field matters little to him; like every independent and original thinker, he has supreme confidence in his own judg- ment, and follows it unfalteringly, although it may Icad him to abandon old traditions and attaek old idols. Living in a period eelebrated for great railroad men, he loses nothing by comparison with the greatest of them. In one short decade he has written his name indelibly on the history of St. Louis and the great Southwest. As has been well said, " He has been the chief promoter, and in some sense the creator, of one of the richest trades that pay tribute to St. Louis, and has now laid hold upon the carrying trade of the Southwest with a boldness and vigor and originality that make him one of the most conspicuous and able leaders of the time."

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History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 47

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898 Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts Number of Pages: 1358

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358