The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-09-13
THE NORTHERN PACIFIC.

Yesterday the last spike, a golden
one, was driven, to fasten the last rail
connecting the eastern with the wes-
tern extension of the Northern Pacific
railway. This was the first projected
of the now three finished transconti-
mental lines. AS early as 1915 pro-
position was made to Congress to
build a railway from Lake Michigan
to the mouth of the Columbia, now
in Oregon. This, it may be said. was
the initiatory move in the direction of
the Nerthern Pacific railway. In18SSSS
the government made surveys of five
routes to the Pacific. The first char
ter for transcontinental railway was
granted to the Union and the Central
Pacific railway companies in 1862, the
government loaning it endorsement
for its bonds as well as giving it large
land grants. In 1864 the Northern
Pacific railway company secured a
charter without theI endorsement of
bonds, but with twice the land grant
given to the other organization. The
Northern Pacific grant embraces the
alternate sections of land for twenty
miles on each side of the road in the
states, and for forty miles in the ter
ritoTies, with an additional t es
on each side as an indemnity limit,
within which lands may be selected
to compensate for those taken by set
tiers inside of the original grant.
After successive failures to enlist
capitalists in the enterprise, Mr.. Jay
Cooke took hold in 1870, and work
was soon begun from point near
Duluth westward. In the same year
construction began at the mouth of
Columbia river, at the port of Calama.
In 1871 the road was finished across
Minnesota to the Red River of the
North, and in 1928 it was built as
far as the Missouri River, where a
town was laid out and named Bis
marck. On the Pacific side 105 miles
of road, between the Columbia River
and Puget Sound. were completed by
the fall of 1873, and terminal
city laid out in a dense fir forest,
on the sound, and named Tacoma.
The panic of 1873 broke Jay Cooke,
and paralized the enterprise. After
two years of financial trouble the
company got on its legs again in 1876,
and building commenced again in
1879. Work was pushed from the
Missouri river westward, and from
the Columbia river into Dakota. In
1881 Mr.. Henry Willard, the now vice
president of the road, organized what
was known as the blind Pool" and
obtained in New York, without MAX
ing his object known. a subscription
of S8,O00,OO0, with which he pur-
chased controlling interest in
the stock of the company, and
was elected its president. at the
beginning of the present year there
were lacking 800 miles OF road, to
make the connection between the
eastern and western extensions. This
gap was closed up during the spring
and summer of 1883, so that the tracks
were ready to be united on the 9Th of
The heaviest construc-
ton work on the entire. line was in
the valley of the Clarke's Fork of the
Columbia, for about 100 miles from
Lake Pend dOreille, where the river
runs through narrow gorge, thanked
on both sides by lofty and precipitous
There was also consider
able difficult work in the valley of
the Yellowstone, in obtaining per-
roadway along the face of
high bluffs of disintegrating rock, and
in managing the current of the river
by bikes and wing-dams, so as to pre-
serve the road from destruction
when once completed. The highest
point reached on the road is 5565 feet
above the sea level, where tunnel
takes it through the backbone of the
continent. For the first $50 miles
westward from Lake Superior, the
road passes through an unbroken for
est. Then the lake and park region
OF western Minnesota, a beautiful ag-
ricultural country, is traversed, and
afterwards the valley of the Red
River of the North, which is a level
and exceedingly rich prairie, about
forty miles wide. Further west. the
country is rolling, treeless prairie as
far as what are known as the bad
Lands which lie on the extreme
western boundary of Dakota, a dis
lance of about $50 miles. Almost the
entire area of Dakota is valuable for
agriculture, its great sta
pie being wheat. The Bad
Lands are a singular, broken
and upheayed country of hills, precip-
itous buttes ana narrow valleys
Three-quarters of the area is covered
with an excellent growth of bunch
grass, and the region. in spite of its