Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1869-06-01
The Pacific Railroad.



Who first suggested Pacific Rail,
way Z In 1873 Jonathan Carver
torshadowed it, and he OF oil men
was fnrthest anead cf the age ia
which he lived. La 1885 The Rev.
Samuel Parker, in his journal Of an
overland trip, recorded his opinion
that the mountains presented no in
superable obstacle to a railway In
1888 Lewis Gaylord Clark wrote in
the Kalckerboeker 1.-The reader is now
living who will make a railway trip
across this vast content. La 1916,
Asa Whitney began to urge bis pro-
ject upon State Legislatures aud
popular gatherings, and be continued
TO agitate the subject for five years.
He proposed to build railroad from
the Mississippi to Puget Sound (Cali-
fernia was not yet settled by whites)
if Congress would give him public
lands to tho width Of 80 miles along
the entire line. Later experience
has shown that their proceeds would
have been utterly insufficient. Yet
" Whitney failed not on that account,
but because he could excite no gen,
eral interest in the subject. In 1850
the first Pacific Railroad bill was in
troduced into Congress by sturdy old
Benton. 1t contemplated railway
only where practicable" leaving
gaps in The impossible mountains to
be filled up by wagon road. As
yet, even the Alleghanies were not
crossed by any unknown railway,
but by series of inclined planes,
upon which the cars were drawn up
and let down by stationary engines.
la 1854, by direction of Congress,
nine routes Were surveyed to tho
Pacific, on various parallels, between
the British Possessions and Mexico.
Among the young officers in charge
OF these explorations were Mcclellan,
Pope, Saxton, Parke and Whipple.-
Another, Lieut.. Gunnison, was muir
dered by the Indians while in the
performance of his duty. The sur
veys resulted in thirteen huge quarto
volumes of reports which are now
curiosities of our historical literature.
Being issued at Government expense,
they were profusely Illustrated with
colored engravings of flowers plants,
reptiles, fishes, birds, mountain seen
cry, and ether subjects which had no
intelligible bearing upon the ease or
difficulty Of building a railway
Under the supervision Of Jefferson
Davis. then Secretary OF War, the
results were summarized in the in
terest. of the ex RENE Southern line,
showing with all the falseness of
figures that a road near the Gulf.
along the 32d parallel, would cost
oplv half IA mach as one further
north, and that the route upon which
our present !!ne runs would be i'm
practicable, on account of heavy
grades aud deep -upws la be Sierrae.
Aad even mp 10 1864 our Canadian
.neighb0rs did not believe that rail
way could be built south of the
British possessions, unless it was
carried far down toward Mexico
In 1859, Congress authorized the
construction OF three roads "a North
crn, a Southern, and Central-and
thus indicated our natural and ine-
vjtabIe transcontinental system
They were to receive no money
endowment, but very liberal land
grants. But before any active stops
could be taken to build them, all such
enterprises were extinguished for the
time by our great war
w hat Government had failed to do,
however, the steady course Of i'm
migration was accomplishing. The
Mormon hegira from Illinois to Utah,
the Mexican war, the California gold
discoveries, the Kansas trou bles, and
the rush to Pixies Peak, had all car
ried settlements westward from the
Mississippi and across Missouri and
Iowa railroads were following.
simultaneously, too, civilization be.
gan to push eastward from the Pa
cific. In the Washoe country, now
Nevada, enterprising prospecters
found abundant quartz rock ricir and
sparkling with silver. A rush to
Washoe followed, and a great State
was founded. The travel and traffic
grew SO enormous that a turnpike
was soon built from, Placerville, CAL
ifornia, over the seemingly insur-
mountable Sierras. The freight pass
ing over it in single year paid tolls
to the amount of 100000, gold, and
the cost of transporting it from Cal
ifornia to Washoe was estimated at
S13, 900 0O9-probabIy twiceits value
in San Francisco.
Thcabsolute need of some cheaper
and easier conS eyance revived the
idea of continental railway, al way 5
popular in California But could the
Sierras be crossed by the locomotive
And who would furnish $25, 900 00O
| to buiIdaroad over them? Theodore
| ID. Judah, sanguine engineer OF
Sacramento, insisted that the project
WAS practicable, both geographically
and pocuniarily Neighbors laughed
at him, but earnestness is always
contagious. Through many a long
winter evening he talked upon hi:
favorite theme with group who fire.
quehted the Hardware store o.
Huntington & Hopkins, firm o
wealthy but cautious and truga
merchants. One partner, with. biz
family, lived in their store building
reparatedfrom their e, ,d~ by IA boar
partition made frsm boxes carried
around Cape Hor,s, all the way from
Boston. ln country where every
oody speculafcd they had aever In
vested a dollar in mining, but ad
| hered specially to their legitimate
business. Huntington was the IRIS
converL Soon, HOPKINS, Crock or,
leading lawyer, and two or three o
their aeighbGrs, We're al-o among th
| prophets. In the spring of 1860
these gentlemen subscribed $50 apiece
10 enable Judah TO devote the sum
mer - !. careful mountain survey
| Other Cal'fornians had advocated
Pacific Railway legislatures an
| pnhiit. m pafipn had on dapuaJ =, a.,