The History of Jackson county, Missouri, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., biographical sketches of its citizens, Jackson county in the late warhistory of Missouri, map of Jackson county, Part 61

Author: Union Historical Company
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Kansas City, Mo. : Union historical company
Number of Pages: 1068

USA > Missouri > Jackson County > The History of Jackson county, Missouri, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., biographical sketches of its citizens, Jackson county in the late warhistory of Missouri, map of Jackson county > Part 61

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Her sectional {position, however, was not favorable, for Congress was then under the dominance of the South, which could not comprehend that there was anything north of the slave States worth considering, and held a route to be cen-

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HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY.

tral must be central to the country south of Mason & Dixon's line. St. Louis even favored this view, and lent her influence to a route by the way of Memphis and Little Rock, and thence across the arid Llano Estacado. At the same time the northern members of Congress, equally sectional as the southern, wanted the Pacific Railroad to start from a point on the frontier, west of Chicago.

Kansas City, undaunted, undertook the task alone, and in July, 1858, her Chamber of Commerce sent Col. Van Horn to Washington with a memorial to Congress on the central route, which was a most thorough, exhaustive and unan- swerable presentation of its advantages, which, on account of its historical value, is here presented.

MEMORIAL.

" To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, in Congress Assembled :

"Your Memorialists, the Chamber of Commerce of the City of Kansas, State of Missouri, would most respectfully represent that we are deeply interested in the question of the construction of a railway to the Pacific Ocean. We are situated upon the central geographical line of the continent, as well as of the Union, and believe that such line is best adapted for the construction of a rail- way. We adopt the premises, that facilities for construction being equal, it is the duty of the Government to construct said road on the most central route, as by so doing all parts of the Union would receive more equal benefits. Believing this to be not only the duty, but the inclination of the Government, it will be our purpose to show that the central route, or, more definitely, the route by the valley of the Kansas River, is not only as practical as any other projected route, but that it is the only route that possesses all the requisites for constructing, main- taining and operating a railway across the continent of North America. In order to present this subject in all its elements, it will be proper to consider it in the order of its geographical position, climate, capacity to support a population and its topographical adaptation for railway construction. We shall then consider, first,

ITS GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION.

" The Lake of the Woods, on the 49th parallel, and Galveston, near the 29th parallel, may be taken as the extreme northern and southern boundaries of the central portion of the Republic. This would make the 39th parallel the cen- tral line, upon which parallel is the valley of the Kansas River, and an air line drawn from Galveston to the Lake of the Woods cuts the delta of the river. From New York to the mouth of the Kansas River is 1,316 miles ; from Phila- delphia, 1,285 miles; from Baltimore, 1, 198 miles; from Charleston, 1,010 miles; from New Orleans, 980 miles. These distances are calculated by the most direct railway connections, completed and in progress. By air lines the distances from the mouth of the Kansas River are, to New Orleans 654 miles, to Charleston 900 miles, to Baltimore 936 miles, to Philadelphia 1, 012 miles, and to New York 1, 012 miles. It will be thus seen that most of our principal seaboard cities on the Atlan- tic coast can reach the mouth of the Kansas River by routes nearly equal in length; thus maintaining, in regard to the trade of the Pacific, the same relative positions, advantages and disadvantages now possessed or afforded them by natural position, climate and facilities for ocean and interior commerce. It would place the Government in no position obnoxious to the charge of favoritism, but like the favors of Providence, its work would fall alike upon all, leaving to individual en- terprise and the laws of trade to determine, if any, the points of commercial supremacy. Indeed, if within the province of a memorial, we would suggest that political considerations alone ought to deter Congress from giving to any one section of country undue facilities for controlling the trade and moneyed interests of

-. SPAC CITY WATERWORKS.

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this great Republic, as all such concentrations and monopolies are destructive of public morality, and that equitable adjustment of interest so essential to the har- mony, protection and development of the whole.

"In considering this question, it is proper that we should keep before us one great object in the construction of such railway-that is, to. connect the two oceans, and afford a military road, accessible from all portions of the Union, for the protection of all its posts. In a strategetical view, your memorialists cannot perceive how the country is to be advantaged by the construction of such a road upon the 48th parallel, its whole length skirted by the possessions of a foreign power ; or by taking the 32d parallel, on the borders of a State with which we have been at war, and with which only a quasi peace is now, or has been main- tained, for the past twenty years, thus subjecting it to inroads of hostile forces, for half its length, on either route. Again, on either of the above routes it would run entirely outside the forts of the Government, away from the Indian tribes, away from the routes of travel, and away from all the interests of the country needing protection.

"The central route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans seems to be marked out by the topography of the country, and should at least be considered before the question of routes is determined. By reference to maps it will be seen that we have three systems of mountains running north and south ; this gives us six systems of rivers running east and west, which rivers occupy the series of central valleys dividing the continent from east to west. These are : the valleys of the Potomac, the Ohio, the Missouri, the Kansas and the Rio Colorado.

"This latter valley is turned from its course by the chain of Wahsatch moun- tains, where it deflects to the southwest, entering the Gulf of California in latitude 32°. But nature seems to have provided for the result by the valley of the Nicolet whose waters run east of the Wasatch range and divide it by a natural channel precisely on the 39th parallel, by which we have an easy route to the spurs of the Sierra Nevada, near the 119th meridian of longitude, where the route strikes the western stream of the Great Basin, and following which by either of the val- leys of the Carson or Walker River to the valley of the Sacramento, or bearing south by Owen's River to the valley of the San Joaquin, via Stockton, to San Francisco.

"These may be denominated the central valleys of the continent, upon which the locomotive is now running for a distance of about 1, 223, miles, 150 of which are west of the Mississippi, and is being prosecuted by the State of Missouri, as rapidly as the work will admit, to the mouth of the Kansas. Within two years there will be a continuous line of railway from tide water, by these central val- leys, to the mouth of the Kansas River. Already has a company been chartered to continue this road up the valley of the Kansas to Fort Riley, which, when completed, will make near 1,400 miles of this route already constructed by the unaided energies of the people inhabiting these central valleys-or one-half of the railroad.

"By the routes named, or by any other route wherever started, the people would have to go back over a country where population has neither demanded or constructed railways, and rebuild nearly five hundred miles of road already con- structed or in progress, before the locomotive could reach its present western station in the wake of population and trade.

" Is it just thus to re-tax the energies of the people to the extent of $20,000,- 000 or $30,000, 000 to secure commercial facilities that they have already provid- ed? By the selection of either of these routes, it would force upon the country the task of reconstructing their whole system of roads, or of doubling their extent in order to reach the great channel of continental commerce and trans- portation.

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HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY.

CLIMATE AND POPULATION.

" In considering this part of the subject, we do not conceive it necessary to lose sight of the object under consideration by a multiplicity of details or baro- metrical observations. It will suffice to state that within the 32d and 44th paral- lels is embraced California, one-half of Oregan, Utah, New Mexico, Kansas, one- half of Nebraska, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and the larger portions of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Vermont, and from within these par- allels comes nine-tenths of the representatives on the floor of Congress. These facts abundantly prove its adaptability to support a dense population, so far as tested, from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The settlement of Kansas Territory within the past three years, is sufficient evidence of the capacity of the eastern slope of the mountains, when we state the fact that the act erecting Minnesota into a Territory bears date in the year 1849, and the act creating a territorial gov ernment in Kansas bears date 1854, and she is now applying for admission, side by side with Minnesota, as one of the sovereign States of the Confederacy, while Nebraska on the north, with three times her territory, and New Mexico on the south, twice her size and with a settlement that dates back to the time of the Spanish Conquest, are yet dependencies upon the bounty of the Federal treasury.

"You have also before you the petition of the people of Carson Valley for a territorial government, and the statistics of its population, which discloses the fact that a powerful nucleus for a State is already in existence, in a locality where previous to their petition, such facts were unknown to a greater portion of the people of the United States, so rapid has been the tide of settlement. Already have the people of California begun to consider the question of building a railway to this valley. East of this, upon the eastern vein of the Great Basin, is the City of the Great Salt Lake, which, with its tributary country, is already dense enough in population for a State government. These Mormon settlements extend throughout the valleys of the Great Basin, in a country unsurpassed for the mild- ness and salubrity of its climate, and for the production of all the cereals necessary for the support of man. We state what our annual experience and annual trade demonstrates, upon our counting-house books, that there are not seventy-five miles of country between the thirty-seventh and fortieth parallels that is not now the habitation of the white man, and where settlement has not penetrated and fixed its never-relaxing grasp upon the soil. These facts we conceive to be of the first importance in a great enterprise like that of the Pacific Railway. We know that through this whole extent of the country, from the waters of the Sierra Nevada, are to be found white men living ; that along it cluster the great Indian tribes of the American continent ; that here is to be found the buffalo, the ante- lope, the horse, and all descriptions of game and fish, upon which the Indian subsists.

"It is on this route his permanent villages are fixed, for it is here he finds his food, fuel to prepare it, water to drink, timber to shelter him from the blasts of winter and from the hot suns of summer, and grass for his stock. These do not exist to the south, on the burning sands and wastes of the great deserts, and there the Indian is never found, except in roving bands, in search of plunder on the more southern valley of Mexico. There are not twenty miles on the whole route that the iron horse cannot drink from living streams of the purest water. In proof of this, we can only cite the fact, that our ox teams traverse it annually, without loss, taking out our wares, and bringing back in return the robes, furs and skins, obtained from the wild tribes of the Sierra Nevada and the trappers and hunters of the Great Basin. Where we can employ the ox in commerce,

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science and engineering can employ the iron horse; and where the ox finds water and subsistence, surely the locomtive can subsist. We wish not to decry other routes, but we merely ask a comparison between this fact and that stated by Lieutenant Beale, in his recent report. When speaking of the capacities of the camel for endurance, he says: "They carried the water for the mules for six days, without tasting a drop, and were in good condition at the end of that time." Yet, the opponents of the central route point triumphantly to the last exploration of Lieut. Beale, as conclusive in favor of their route. They seem to forget that Beale had two objects to attain-a railway route and the success of the camel experiment. But, unfortunately for them, his railway notes and his camel enlogiums are based upon entirely different data. The country that suited a railway did not develop the camel, and we have its topography in glowing colors-but the country in which the camel exhibited his peculiar powers of ab- stinence and wonderful endurance, was not the route of the iron horse ; and we have, instead of curvatures, gradients, and equated distances, the field notes of the dromedary, and his ability to subsist upon the hardest, bitterest, and scarcest shrubs, that a torrid sun and drifting sand clouds could produce.

"Another consideration in connection with this portion of the subject, seems to have been lost sight of by the advocates of the southern, or thirty-second par- allel route. Their deductions are drawn from the fact that a railway may be operated over this desert route. with intervals of water of seventy-five to one hundred miles, by sinking wells to supply the engines. But they seem to over- look the fact that a railroad must be built before it can be operated ; and how thousands of laborers are to be concentrated on these desert wastes, without water, or dependant upon such prospects as Lieut. Beale holds out, in his well- boring experiments, is a question worthy of consideration, before the Government commits itself to such a project. We assert, without hesitation, and appeal to any authority, from the most scientific to that of the sub-contractor, and the labor- er himself, if the idea of building 1,000 miles of railway-500 of which are arid wastes, where camels travel six days without water-by the manual labor of hu- man beings, is not one of the most stupendous schemes of folly ever undertaken in the history of the world. It might be done in a long series of years, and after the sacrifice of thousands of lives and millions of treasure ; but is it in con- sonance with the obligations to the American people to attempt such a sacrifice of treasure, life and time, upon such a route, when there is a route of the same character, in climate, soil and production, on the part to be constructed, as that upon which the portion already in operation is built. Can men labor, not for an hour, but for days, weeks, and months, on a naked plain, in an atmosphere so hot and dry that ' the nicely seasoned and well finished cases of the English in- struments of Lieutenant Whipple, made many years since, had so shrunk, from the aridity of the air, as not to admit of their original contents; and when the horn, incasing the reading lens of his micrometer, snapped and flew into three pieces, from the excessive dryness of the atmosphere?' How are dirt carts, picks, spades, and the thousand and one articles attached to a railroad construc- tion party, to be operated in a climate like this, and who are to operate them, if it were possible ?

" Settlement, population and production are requisites that enter into and con- trol all railway enterprises, and furnish, after they are built, the business which sustains them, and keeps them in operation. We will now examine this branch of our subject, before we dismiss this division, and enter upon the topographical arguments of this memorial. We have shown that the population of the Union, in the proportion of nine-tenths, is already crowded between the parallels 23-44, and that it has extended westward almost to the base of the Rocky Mountain chain, on 37-40. We have also shown that it has commenced on the Pacific Coast, and followed the same parallels east, to meet the tide from this side, as far as Carson

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Valley. We have also shown that the necessities of Mormon prosperity have al- ready peopled the eastern vein of the Great Basin, leaving only a narrow strip, .of what is said on the map to be " unexplored" lands, between the two veins of the Basin. But, although "unexplored" by government parties, it is familiar to many of our hardy and enterprising people, who have, for the last thirty years, made the great interior of the continent their homes, and carried their traffic from the possessions of the Hudson Bay Company to the Gulf of California; and it is from these men, our neighbors, our associates in business, and from personal ob- servations, that we speak; to them we fearlessly appeal for the correctness of all herein stated. But to return to the subject: Lying west of Kansas, is the large extent of country drained by the Grand and Green Rivers, affluents of the Rio Colorado of the West, extending north and south 300 miles, by 270 east and west, sufficient for a State as large as New York, of a climate and soil well adapt- ed to the wants of civilization. The country lies between the Rocky Mountains and the Wahsatch Range, and has, in the opinion of even government explorers, uninterrupted navigation to the Gulf of California.

"West of this, and east of the Sierra Nevada, is Carson Valley, of which it is unnecessary for us to again speak in this connection. Thus we find that on the south of the 39th parallel, we have a continuous line of grain producing country, of temperate climate, abundant water, and timber in greater quantities than any other route south, and greater than any route north, until we reach the 49th par- allel, which skirts the sources of all our mighty rivers, in the cold and inhospitable pineries of the north; a region of country adapted to all the pursuits of civilized life, and where population is now seeking and opening up homes for our people ; a route upon which can be built powerful and populous States; and which will furnish protection and business to the road when built. These considerations alone, in the opinion of your memorialists. should decide the Government in the selection of the route for the great Pacific Railway. But, knowing as we do, that notwithstanding all these facts, this route is put down in the report of the Secretary of War, for 1855, as "impracticable," from its topography, we deem it proper to show that prejudice in consequence, is not only unfounded, but that the reports upon which he so declared it do not warrant this sweeping and gratu- itous assertion. We ask a still further hearing upon the topography of the coun- try on the 39th parallel route, as well as an exposure of the fallacies of govern- ment explorations as indices, for guidance, in a work of such magnitude as the construction of a railway to the Pacific. We desire, in this connection, to ask on other test than an engineering one, because we cannot permit the Central Route to be abandoned, when we know it presents no greater engineering obsta- cles than the State of Missouri has already overcome on the part of her Pacific Railroad already constructed, and nothing like such engineering difficulties as the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad has surmounted, in its passage of the Alleghanies.

THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THE ROUTE, GOVERNMENT EXPLORATIONS, ETC., ETC.

"In considering the topography of the 39th parallel route, it is not within the purpose of this memorial to enter into minute details, but to present facts known to exist, leaving to demonstrated experience the question of practicability. From the mouth of the Kansas to the Rocky Mountains, it is everywhere ad- mitted, and by every test demonstrated, that for seven hundred miles there is not an equal line of eligible railway track on the globe-without a hill, without a marsh or swamp, without a large stream to cross, without an obstacle of any description that an ordinary wagon cannot surmount-with wood, water, grass, coal, iron, lead, gypsum, salt and stone all along its course ; covered with buffalo, elk, antelope, grouse and horses; inhabited by Indians, traders, white men and mixed races engaged in cultivation, grazing, hunting, trapping, war and traffic -- a country over which from our own city annually go trains of wagons, carrying.

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three tons each, and where no road making party have ever struck an axe or pick. "Where can such an argument-such a demonstration-be urged in favor of any other seven hundred mile line on the surface of the earth ? From this city alone, along this line, covering, as it does, almost two degrees of latitude, is transported a commerce of $7,000,000 annually. This constitutes the first division of the road.

" The second division lies within the mountain ranges and spurs, and is known as "The Parks," and the valleys of every size that intersect this portion of the country in all directions. It is this region which is held up by the opponents of the true central route, and by the Secretary of War in his report of 1855, as "im- practicable." But instead of being this formidable obstruction, it is, in reality, the finest portion of the whole route in all the elements necessary to population, climate, soil, wood, water and vegetation, and contains in greater profusion the elements necessary for the sustenance of animal life and civilized habitation than any other division between the Mississippi and the Pacific. There is no moun- tain region yet known that can equal, or that can bear any comparison with it for salubrity and fruitfulness. Instead of the Rocky Mountains, on this parallel, being a barrier to be dreaded, or an obstacle to be surmounted in the shortest possible time, they are hailed by our trains, droves of stock and emigrants as a resting place for man and a recruiting ground for animals ; for here is found corn and food for man, and the rich, luxuriant and nutritious grass of these natural meadows, upon which stock will travel and fatten. This region extends north and south from the 37th to the 4Ist degrees of latitude, and embraces from east to west the whole mountain range. We have the testimony of Beale, Fremont and Gunnison of the entire practicability of this region for railroad construction, and find it more abundant in timber, water and stone than any other portion of the range. We refer to these authorities simply to show that other evidence besides our own knowledge of the country exists, as corroborative of what our commercial intercourse with this region proves to us.

" The third division embraces the valley of the Upper Colorado, between the base of the Rocky Mountains and the Wahsatch range, 150 miles east and west, by 300 or 400 north and south. This valley is open to the construction of any description of road, and bears the usual features of the country, alternated with timber and prairie ; and the simple fact of its being surrounded on three sides with ranges of mountains, covered with perpetual snow, is sufficient to demonstrate its ample supply of water.

" Those who have wintered in this valley speak of it as almost destitute of

snow. Coal abounds in this valley in all directions, and can almost be quarried from the banks of the streams. As to soil, this division is inferior to the first two, but it is equal to the second in wood and water, and superior to both. It is annually traversed by droves of stock, mules, cattle and sheep, and from the accounts of drovers, whom we know personally, who traverse it every year, and from citizens living among us, affords wood, water and grass in abundance for the daily wants of the largest herds driving ten, fifteen and twenty miles per day.

"The fourth division, through which the great and true central route will pass, extends from the Wahsatch range to the Sierra Navada, and embraces a country less known to the Government by explorations than almost any part of the continent.

"But, strange as it may seem, it is doubtless one of the richest portions of the American continent in all the elements that make up a desirable country for development by civilization ; coal, iron, timber, rock-salt in almost fabulous abund- ance in the mountain ranges, and soil, water, grass and wood in the valleys, and already settled throughout the whole region-farms under cultivation, towns and villages built, grist and saw mills in operation, smelting furnaces and forges

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The History of Jackson county, Missouri, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., biographical sketches of its citizens, Jackson county in the late warhistory of Missouri, map of Jackson county, Part 61

Author: Union Historical Company Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Kansas City, Mo. : Union historical company Number of Pages: 1068

Author: Union Historical Company
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Kansas City, Mo. : Union historical company
Number of Pages: 1068