USA > Missouri > Missouri the center state, 1821-1915 > Part 20
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Early Railroad Projects.
St. Louis had 10,000 inhabitants when Mayor John F. Darby sent a railroad message to the board of aldermen. That was the first formal railroad project in Missouri or anywhere west of the Mississippi. The time was February, 1836. The road then proposed was to run from St. Louis to Fayette in Howard county. Acting on Mayor Darby's message, the board of aldermen called a meeting of the citizens. The meeting appointed a committee to draw up an address. In effect the address was a call to the counties interested to send delegates to a railroad con- vention to be held in St. Louis in April, 1836. Eleven counties were represented. The delegates were entertained at the expense of the city and were banqueted. Two projects were endorsed. One of them was a railroad south from St. Louis to Iron Mountain. The other was for a railroad to St. Charles and westward through the counties north of the Missouri river.
At the next session of the legislature, 1836-7, George K. McGunnegle, a repre- sentative from St. Louis, introduced a bill to charter the St. Louis and Iron Mountain and the bill passed. That was the beginning of railroad legislation in Missouri. The legislature declined to vote aid to the enterprise.
For ten years after St. Louis began the agitation for railroads Benton and his following opposed government aid to them. Coming back from Washington in 1839, the Senator said in a speech: "Ever since the day when General Jackson vetoed the Lexington and Maysville road bill, internal improvement by the general government was no longer to be considered as among the teachings and doctrines of the democratic party. It is the old, antiquated, obsolete and exploded doctrine of Henry Clay's 'American system.' Look at Illinois, where whig rule obtained for awhile, overwhelmed in debt, unable to pay the interest on her bonds. Look at Missouri, a State free of debt-a State governed by democracy."
Benton's Conversion.
In 1849 Benton reversed himself. He made the speech more frequently quoted than any other in what he liked to call the "six Roman lustrums" of his senatorial career. The occasion was the national convention held in St. Louis to promote the building of a transcontinental railroad from the Mississippi to San Francisco. Benton participated. Enthusiasm reached its highest pitch when with all of his oratorical magnetism, he pointed toward the west and exclaimed: "There is the east. There is India !" The words of prophecy gave Harriet Hosmer the inspira-
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tion for the statue of Benton which stands in Lafayette park. Advocacy at last of that which he had most strenuously opposed won for Benton his greatest renown.
The invitation to Benton to participate in the convention was carried by John F. Darby, one of the leaders in the movement. He said to the Senator, as he afterwards narrated: "Colonel Benton, we expect you to aid us in this matter. St. Louis from her central position is entitled to have the road start from here. We shall have opposition and much to contend with. Douglas is striving hard for the Presidency, and he will try to have the Pacific road start from Chicago instead of St. Louis, run through Iowa, and give us the go-by. Should Douglas succeed in his presidential aspirations, it will give him additional power and influence."
The reply of Senator Benton, as Mr. Darby reported it, was: "I shall be there, sir; I shall attend the convention, and advocate the building of the road from St. Louis to San Francisco. Douglas never can be President, sir. No, sir, Douglas never can be President. His legs are too short, sir. His coat, like a cow's tail, hangs too near the ground, sir."
Miss Hosmer's conception represents Benton holding a map and looking down to it. One who was present described Benton as assuming his most impressive pose, throwing back his head and stretching out his right arm to indicate the course, as he said in deep tones :
"Let us beseech the national legislature to build the great road upon the great national line, which unites Europe and Asia-the line which will find on our continent the bay of San Francisco at one end, St. Louis in the middle, the national metropolis and great com- mercial emporium at the other end-the line which will be adorned with its crowning honor, the colossal statue of the great Columbus, whose design it accomplishes, hewn from the granite mass of a peak of the Rocky Mountains, overlooking the road-the pedestal and the statue a part of the mountain, pointing with outstretched arm to the western horizon and saying to the flying passenger, there is the east-there is India !"
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 meeting 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
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$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 con- tribution 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 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 Mountain, the North Missouri, now known as the Wabash, and the Ohio and Mississippi, 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 Thorton Grimsley on Fourth street. Flags were flying everywhere -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 pro- cession were escorted officials of the State, the president, directors 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
CUPPLES STATION, ON SAME SITE, 1914
CHOUTEAU'S POND. ST. LOUIS, 1840
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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 earnings. 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 possi- bilities 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 can stop it there? Beyond lie the extended plains of the Missouri and the Arkansas, 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 throw- ing 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.
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 were 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 Hanni- bal 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 railroad went into operation. On the first day of December, 1852, the first locomotive 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 Fourteenth street. Thomas Allen, president of the Pacific, T. S. O'Sullivan, Mr. Copp, secretary of the company ; William R. Kingsley, and a few others connected 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 beginning 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
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the rail." The section of road then opened was from the St. Louis terminus to 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.
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 College, 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, partially unballasted and untried road." After the banquet there were speeches, of course. One of the most significant was made by Hon. 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 construction 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 state bonds issued to help railroad building which brought par were those for the Platte railroad.
CHARLES G. WARNER
S. H. H. CLARK
D. R. GARRISON
A. A. TALMAGE
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Overland Mail by Stage and Rail.
The arrival of the first overland mail made the Ioth 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 railroad terminus, 3181/2 miles in 48 hours, 55 minutes ; to St. Louis by railroad, 160 miles in 1 1 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 distance. 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 :
"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 Stewartsville.
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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 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 of 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.
"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 airship 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 chil- dren, 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 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 hcard 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 'cm. 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.
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