The Fremont weekly journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio) 1867-1877, 1869-05-21

and Great Western Railroad for James
McHenry and Sir Morton Peto, at the
rate of mile day, it was the wonder
of the mechanical world. Durant aver
eraged three, four, and five miles day
for weeks, and one day seven miles
and nineteen hundred feet of rails we're
laid, spiked, and put in running order.
He swept through the Plains aud run
over the Rocky Mountains. The coun-
try was secured fol the necessary stock
of tools, of laborers, and of the best
men for the responsible places. The
hair of a noted plough maker of New
York was made to stand on end by the
receipt of an imperative order for three
thousand plough points. His largest
customers had rarely ordered one hun
dred points at time, and he thought
the purchasing agent of the Union Pa
cifc was crazy. But every six-mule
team, drawing plough through the
disintegrated granite of the Black Hills,
ground one of those points to pieces in
two hours, and three thousand were
needed.
Two hundred and sixty-fve miles
were built in 1866; two hundred and
thirty-five in 1867 while since Jan l,
1868, five hundred and sixty miles have
been built equipped and put in opera
ton. One thousand and eighty miles
in three years and a quarter! That
will do to brag of.
Meantime, the western part of the
work has been pushed with similar en-
ergy. The heavy grades of the Sierra
Nevada were encountered soon after
leaving Sacramento, and within eleven
miles of the summit of the mountain
range. Early in 1868 the summit tun-
mel was completed, and during that
year and the four months of 1869 the
road has been carried rapidly down the
Truckee and Humboldt valleys, and to
the meeting point at the head of Great
Salt Lake. 1t has been said that the
Government endowed these construct
ing companies too literally. Let us
see. 1t gives them one-half the pub
lie land on twenty miles each side of
the track. This is a royal domain, and
is an absolute grant. But through this
encouragement the railroad has been
built which brings the adjacent govern
ment lands into market, and gives them
a value which otherwise they would
not have for fifty years. Already all
government lands along the line of the
road have been increased in price from
$1,25 per acre to $3.50 so that for the
one-half area which the government
has left it will get as much as it would,
without the road, have got for the
whole. In this respect, therefore, the |
railroad has been the donor and Uncle
Sam has made good thing oft. Then
as to bonds; the government does not
give these, but loans its credit for thirty |
years, one-half the account of the rail-
road against the United States for trans
portation of troops, mails, stores, and
the like, to be applied to the payment
Of the interest and principle of this loan.
The Quartermaster General reports that
in this transportation for the year 1857,
the government paid the railroad two
million dollars less than it would have
had to pay for the transportation of
the same material by wagons. The
saving for 1868 is estimated to have
been more than 1857; and as the mail I
account increases yearly, while the
freight charges will be from time to
time reduced, it is fair to say that the
actual saving to the government will
and steadily increase. The
road to the Pacific is finished seven
years earlier than the statutory limit.
In this seven years there will be a saw
ing to the government of not less than
fourteen million dollars in tra1sporta-
ton, for which the companies should /
have especial credit as being due sole
ly to the remarkable energy which has
built the road so much within the time
allowed, while within thirty years, the
period which the bonds loaned to the {
Company have to run, the saving will, |,
at the above rate, foot up sixty millions,
Or more than double the total amount Of
The loan.
Be this as it may, the grand fact re-
mains that the Pacific Railroad is built, |,
hat the work is done seven years soon
er than was expected, and that the gold k
seeker who went out round the Horn
n 1910, may now return to the Allan
ic in week, without other conveyance
han rail cars and an occasional ferry If
boat.