The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-09-10
THE GOLD SPIKE DRIVEN.
The Ceremony that Declares the
Northern Pacific Road Completed.
Brief History of the First Projected
TranscontiDental Line-Its Terminal
Cities and Ports-Its Finances.

ehe completion OF the Northern Paclhc rail-
way, was observed at precisely $3.50 this after
noon, amid the ~plaudits of a great multitude
and the booming of cannon. Speeches were
made appropriate to the occasion by Presi-
dent Willard, of the Northern Pacific; Freder-
ick Billings, ex-president of the road, and
Hon. William NJ. Evarts. Others among
those present made brief addresses. The
point where the ceremony took place is
forty miles west of Helena.
Although the first projected railroad line
across the continent to the Pacific coast, the
Northern Pacific is the last to be completed.
AS long ago as 1885 the project of building a
railroad from New York city to the mouth
of the Columbia river was discussed in the
newspapers. In 1916 Asa Whitney, a New
York merchant, proposed to Congress to
build a railroad from the head l. of Lake Mich
igan to the mouth of the Columbia, in case
it would give him a land grant sixty miles
in width for the whole length of the line.
This plan was embodied in a bill which was
before Congress for a number of years, and
in 1S47 came near passing.
III 1858 the government made surveys of
five routes to the Pacific. The northern
route was surveyed by an expedition under
Isaac 1. Stevens, Governor of Washington
Territory, who had been a regular army
officer. When the Union and Central Pa
cifc companies were chartered, in 1862, a
strong effort was made to obtain a charter
for the Northern line. 1t failed at the time,
but was revived in 1864, when the Union
and Central companies were before Congress
asking for legislation subordinating the gov
eminent lien to their first MORTGAGES. The
man who succeeded in getting the charter
was Josiah Perham, who had organized a
company under sanction OF the Legislature
of Maine, called the Peoples Pacific Rail-
road Company, and had attempted, in 1862,
to obtain the Union Pacific charter for this
corporation. Failing in this, he turned
his attention to the northern route,
and by promising to ask for no sub
sidy in bonds or money from the gov
eminent, he obtained, in 1864, a charter,
coupled with a land grant just double in area
that given to the Union and Central Pacific
companies. The Northern Pacific grant en-
braces the alternate sections of land for
twenty miles OH each side of the road in the
States, and for forty miles in the Territories,
with an additional ten miles on each side as
an indemnity limit, within which lands may
be selected to compensate for those taken by
settlers inside of the original grant.
No progress was made towards commencing
SAS CAN1N ANNHC ~ htC OhA bAA 20 SOOhO
came to the aid of the enterprise with his
great reputation as a successful financier. He
obtained legislation in Washington authoriz-
ing the issue of bonds and changing the main
line of the road so that it would run down
the Columb river to Portland, and thence
north to Puget Sound, instead of across the
tremendous barrier of the Cascade Noun
tains. Cooke first proposed to place the
Northern Pacific loan in Europe. but his
plans to this end were defeated by the break
ing out of the Franco-G German war.
The panic of 1873 destroyed the banking
house of Jay Cooke & Co., and paralyzed for
the time the Northern Pacific enterprise.
The company was left with a bonded debt of
about $50, 900, 900, drawing interest at the
high rate of Z $40 per cent, and with consid-
cradle floating debt.
In 1879 the company had so far recovered
It's credit that il was able to borrow money
to resume construction operations on a large
scale. 1t began to build from the Missouri
rivar westward, and from the Columbia
river, in eastern Washington Territory, to
the junction of the Snake river, northeast
wardly toward Lake Pend dOreille, in north
ern Idaho.
In 1881 a very important change took place
in the management of the Northern Paciic's
affairs. Henry Willard, a German by birth,
who came to this country at the age of
eighteen, and won considerable reputation
ass newspaper correspondent during and
after the civil war, and who had become IN
terested in railroad management in Kansas
and Oregon as the representative of large
German financial interests, had gradually
obtained control. during the six wears fol-
lowing the panic of 1873, of the transporta-
ton lines by rail, river and sea in the State
Aof Oregon. These lines he had consolidated
and greatly extended, SO that they repre-
sented what, for a new country. was a re-
markably efficient transportation system. In
1880 Mr.. Willard determined, if possible, to
SQcHra a harmony of interests and oOntrot
between his Oregon lines and the Northern
Pacific line, so as to make the former the
western extensions and feeders of the latter.
In 1881 he organized what was known as the
blind pool" in New York, and
obtained, within a few weeks, from
subscriptions, over 49, 900, 600 of money. with
out disclosing the use which he meant to
make OF this large sum, and without giving
. any other security than his personal receipts.
With this money and other means of his
own he quietly purchased a controlling in
terest in the stock of the Northern Pacific
company, and was elected its president in
September of that year, placing his friend
and former associate in railroad management
in Kansas and Oregon, Mr.. Thomas F. Cakes,
in the vice-presidency, as the chief executive
officer of the company.
Construction operations went on rapidly
during the years 1880, 1881 and 1882, from
both ends of the line, and at the beginning
of the year 1888 the track remaining to be
constructed was reduced to about 800 miles,
on which the grading had been mainly done.
This gap was closed up during the spring
and summer of 1883, SO that the tracks were
ready to be united on the 8th of September.
The heaviest construction work on the en-
tire line was in the valley of the Clarke's
Fork of the Columbia, for about one hun
dred miles from Lake Pend d'Orielle, where
the river runs through a narrow gorge,
fanked on both sides by lofty and p%recipit-
Gus mountains. There was also cOnSidpra-
BILE work in the valley of the Yellowstone,
in obtaining a permanent roadway along the
face of high bluffs of disintegrating rock,
and in managing the current of the river bv