Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1879-03-27
RAILROAD PROGRESS.
Great Demand for Steel Rails Twelve
Thousand Miles of New Railroads To
Build this Summer.

ST. Louis Correspondenceo OF Cincinnati Enquirer
"If a arailroad wants to buy steel rails, u
SAID Oliver Garrison, a brother of Com
modore Garrison and the vice-president
OF the Missouri Pacific railroad, they'll
have to pay for them after this"
"Why?" | asked.
Because, sir, the price is going up"
Glow fast ?' .a
why, fifty cents ton per week, and,
IN fact, you can't buy all you want at
any price. We want four hundred
tons of rails now to lay in Missouri and
to extend the Missouri Pacific out
through Kansas, and we can't find them.
I've written to half the steel rail mills
in the United States and they are not
to be had"
What causes the scarcity ?"
$50 many new railroads ~being built.
tell you, Mr.. Perkins, that the railroad
fever has started again. Twelve thou
sand miles of new railroad are in sight
nOw-to be built next summer-and
5000 miles of steel rails will be laid on
old beds. Twenty thousand miles of
new steel rails in one year will exhaust
the supply" ts:. te
what new railroads are to be
buiit?"
"Well, we are going to build our
Missouri Pacific out through Kansas
south of and parallel to the Atchison,
Topeka d Santa Fe road. We shall
lay our track from forty to sixty miles
south of the Atchison, Topeka &
Santa Fe road and run it clear through
Albuquerque pronounced Al-be-kirk,) J
in New Mexico Then the Santa Fe
people are building toward Leadville,
in Colorado, and down into New Mexi-
CO; the Southern Pacific people are
building west and south of Fort Yuma
a mile day; Albert Pierce has gone
down to San Antonio TO commence
building the Galveston & San Antonio
road from San Antonio west to the Rio
Grande, where he viii meet the South
ern Pacific people; the Northern Pa
cltic people are piliDg up their steel
rails on the west bank of the Missouri
at Bismarck, ready to lay the track to
the Yellowstone with the first grass;
the Canadian Pacific people are blast
ing through from Winnepeg, in Mani
toba, and piling up steel rails at Fort
William and Winnepeg to connect with
Thunder Bay, on Lake Superior, in the
spring; the st. Louis, Kansas City &
Northern road will push through from
Chillicothe and Gallatin to Council
Bluffs; the Utah Southern will be built
450 miles south, and the Utah North
ern l5O miles north from Fort Hall, to-
ward Virginia City and Helena, making
a continuous north and south line right
in the center of the continent over 700
miles long. Besides these are dozens
OF other little roads all over the coun-
try, which, you know, are always being
built"
GLOW many steel-rail furnaces are
there IN the country"
about ten in running order-ten big
ones"
"What are the rest doing?"
ooh, laying still now, and will lay still
till steel rails advance to $50 per ton,
and then, [ presume, they will ali start
up. It costs $54 per ton to make steel
rails"
What stopped the other steel rail
mills?"
"Oh, there is steel furnace pool. II
was agreed when steel rails got so low shat
ten furnaces would rnn-do all the work
and divide the profits with the mills
standing still. The big steei-rail furnace
belonging to the Garrisons, down on the
Iron Mountain road, has been standing
still for several years. We have been
paid $4,000 per annum from the pool
to stand still. Now, when iron advan-
ces l presume we will start up-that is,
when the ten mills now making the rails
for the country find they can't do all the
work" -......
'Then railroad and iron interests look
prosperous just now?".
Every. Never, in ten years, has the
future and present looked so bright as
now for their interests