Transcontinental

Following the Civil War there was an immediate and great expansion in the railroad business of the country. Not only had the war shown the necessity of railroads, but the check put upon construction by the Civil War and in the years immediately preceding resulted in a dearth of facilities that had to be overcome at once. Besides, the general inflation of business, and especially the quick development of manufacturing, when those who had long served in the field returned to their their former pursuits, created a new demand for transportation. Moreover, in the South the railroads which existed before the war had to be completely rebuilt. Indeed, they hardly existed save on paper as legal corporations. The physical property had disappeared. Naught was left save scrap heaps of iron rails, engines and wheels; roadbeds washed out or buried beneath rock and dirt; and piles of ashes and rotted

Ship-building at the close of Street car transportation

wood where once had been stations, freight houses and cars.

Great plans had been made before the war for railroad extensions in the West and the policy of governmental land-grant subsidies had done much to encourage these movements. Immediately after peace had been secured, this work was again taken in hand and vigorously pressed. In the next 15 years all the Western States. and Territories hitherto without railroads fell into line - Nevada in 1868, Montana and Utah in 1869, Colorado, Indian Territory, Wyoming and Oregon in 1870, North Dakota and South Dakota in 1873, Idaho in 1874, New Mexico in 1878, and Arizona in 1879. Of later origin were the first railroads in Oklahoma and Alaska.

But the introduction of railroads into States previously devoid of them was only part of the wonderful railroad growth of this period. Everywhere in the country the work of expansion and improvement went on.

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It began in 1864 and in two years was progressing with unprecedented rapidity. By 1869 it had gathered such momentum that in each of the two succeeding years the increase was 8,000 miles. But this pace could not be maintained forever. Railroad building was overdone, reckless competition ensued, and the end came with the financial panic of 1873, for which the railroads themselves largely responsible. Railroad increase dropped off 75 per cent., but there was a quick recovery, and in 1886-1887 nearly 13,000 miles of new trackage was constructed. From this point the railroads settled down to a normal growth, which lasted until the business depression of 1893, when, for the first time in the history of the United States, there was a decrease in the number of miles operated. The miles of road in operation in this period were 30,626 in 1860, 52,922 in 1870, 93,926 in 1880, 166,706 in 1890, and 190,082 in 1900.

After 1900 the annual increase was generally greater than in the years immediately preceding, and during the decade it reached 236,777 miles, in 1909 the annual average being over 5,000. This increase was less in annual gross amount than in some of the "boom" years between 1865 and 1890, but it was more than the average of those years. The percentage increase, however, was smaller, and very much so, when compared with the early period of railroad building. From 1835 to 1860 the increase for

each period of five years was 100 per cent. These figures and comparisons indicate that at the end of the first decade of the Nineteenth century the railroads were still behind the normal demand for transportation and travel service. They had more nearly caught up with the needs of the country than in the years preceding the Civil War, but there still remained regions uncultivated and unserved by them.

The idea of a transcontinental railroad which should link the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and eliminate the long ocean voyage around Cape Horn and the plodding, dangerous prairieschooner trip across the Rockies, was considered as early as 1850-less than 20 years after the first crude attempts at railroading had been made. It required 20 years and the exigencies of Civil War conditions — when the necessity of closer alliance between the East and the Far West was made manifest-to bring the idea to realization. For this purpose the Government heavily subsidized the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific roads with bonds and land grants in 1862. Work was begun in 1865 and the line was completed by a junction of the two roads near Ogden, Utah, in May of 1869.

Other transcontinental lines were built within the next 15 years; the Northern Pacific from Lake Superior to Puget Sound; the Atlantic and Pacific, in connection with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé, and the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway;

the Texas Pacific, to extend from New Orleans to a union with the Southern Pacific; and the junction also of the Southern Pacific with the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio road to the ports of the Gulf of Mexico. These extensions and consolidations, all accomplished between 1864 and 1883, were the precursors of the greater railroad combinations of the generation immediately following.

The expansion of the great constructive period of railroading, which may be considered to have come to an end by 1870, was reckless and feverish. Capital rushed headlong into this new field of investment, and year after year offered transportation facilities more rapidly than the business of the country warranted. The inevitable result was vicious competition and ultimate ruin. Rate wars were the conspicuous feature of this period, and presently, when energy had wasted itself in this direction, resort was had to combination of rival interests. Consolidation on a small scale had been known in years before, but now measures were taken to bring the entire system into a unity of purpose by closer combinations and "gentlemen's agreements "regarding traffic. These measures had only temporary effect owing to the strong public feeling which developed against what was considered railroad monopoly and extortion and also because of the difficulty of completely reconciling the conflicting corporate interests.

During the last 30 years of the

Nineteenth century and the early years of this, the railroad problem was not one of expansion so much as of economical administration — a better adaptation to the business needs of the generation and a clearer comprehension of the mutual interests of the public. Much of this problem was solved by more intelligent, scientific and experienced attention to the subject by those who made it their profession. The attitude of the public also became an important factor. The feeling against corporate interests, so notable and so powerful in this period, began in the West in the Granger movement in 1870-73, and it is not too much to say that the railroad, as an economic institution, has thereby been materially affected in subsequent years. Drastic legislation touching the railroads was enacted in most of the States. Some of this passed away, but much of it remained and none of it was without lasting influence. The theory of government supervision State or National - sprang up and persisted so that in the end the railroads found it generally impossible to escape from amenability to public authority. In the States, this control was placed in the hands of railroad commissions which exercised their powers more in the interest of the community than of the corporation. In the National government power was vested in the Interstate Commerce Commission, whose decisions in many instances, especially in the tariff rate question in 1911, went a long way