The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-01-01

Thursday one of the sweetest girls in
Pittsburg''
wait till Thursday. But who is this
charming lady? pr
1.-The very one of whom 1 have
spoken to you" said 1.
/ had learned from Miss Riddle some
days before that she was going TO
Philadelphia, and as soon as l got Colo
mel Scotts consent to wait over ] went
and told her of my plan. At first she
would have none of it, but persuaded
her. assured her she could rely on
my care not to place her in a false po-
sition, and finally she agreed. Well,
the trip was made as l planned it, and
eventually Colonel Scott and Miss Rid
die were married. She was a charming
girl and made him a good wife. And
that is Why say l was able TO do him
one good turn, anyway, in repayment
of the many he did me.
was examining the railroad track
one DAY after my return to the service
of the Pennsylvania Railroad COM
pany, when tall man with a green
bag in his hand came up and asked
me if l was connected with the Penn
sylvania Railroad company. When 1
said yes, he drew out the model or a
sleeping berth and showed it to me.
he did not need to explain 1t at any
great length. l seemed to see its value
at flash. Railroad cars in which peo-
pie could sleep on long journeys-of
course, there were no railroads across
the continent yet-struck me as being
the very thing for this land of magnifi-
cent distances. l told him l would
speak about this model to Mr.. Scott
and | did SO, enthusiastically. He did
not share my enthusiasm, but said |
might bring the inventor to see him.
So | introduced T. T. Woodruff, the
inventor of the sleeping car. And the
result was not only the building of two
trial cars. which were run over the
Pennsylvania railroad, but the forma
ton of sleeping car company, in
which l was offered an interest. L
promptly accepted, although L didn't
quite know where my share of the cap
ital was coming from. But this, my
third business venture, found me con-
fident in my ability to overcome diff
culties. 1 had secured the money to
buy the Adams Express stock; L would
get the money to buy the sleeping car
stock.
But how? At last / went to the
bank, and, telling the president the
exact facts, offered him my note for
$2l7.50--Iny share of the first payment
on the stock-if he would advance me
the money and let me pay him back
out of my salary at the rate OF SO
month. TO my delight, he patted me
on the back, said, You are all right
Andy" and discounted my note. My
subsequent payments for stock in the
Woodruff Sleeping Car company L was
enabled to meet without giving. any
more notes, from the receipts of the
cars themselves. 1t was thus l made
my first substantial capital.
OPPORTUNITY IN OIL.
When | heard of the oil strike on the
Storey farm on Oil creek. l resolved
to invest in oil lands. l visited that
famous well from which quantities of
oil were running waste into the creek.
The capacity of the well was several
hundred barrels a day, but when my
associates and l bought the farm, for
$40. Geo. we had no confidence that Tbs
flow would continue. and built a pond
big enough to hold 100000 barrels. We
ran our oil into this pond until we had
run in several hundred thousand bar
rels, part of which. leaked and some
of which evaporated. Yet this invest
ment of $4,000 paid US in one year
81 OO0, GOO in cash and dividends. and
the farm itself eventually became
worth, on a stock basis, the sum of
s., COO 600.
START IN THE STEEL BUSINESS.
There We're so many delays on rail-
broken wooden bridges. that | felt the
day of wooden bridges must end soon,
just as the day of wood burning loco
motives was ended. Cast iron bridges.
thought, ought to replace them. so
l organized company, principally
from railroad men 1 knew. to make
these iron bridges, and we called 1t
the Keystone Bridge Works. The de-
Velopment of this new company re-
NV
the railroad service in 1861 | had
risen from telegraph operator to be su-
perintendent of the western division.
no longer drew a salary; from thau
time or l was my own master
In 1868 I returned to England. and
there ] noticed that the railroads were
discarding iron rails and substituting
steel The necessity for this had long
been impressed on me. and on railroad
men iii general. In fact. the Pennsyi-
vania company had, at my suggestion,
spent $4,000 on a process for harden
ing rails by carbon-Drecisely the
modern Harvey process, and very good
rails they were, too. But on my re-
turn from England l built at Pitts
burg plant for the Bessemer process
of Steel-making, which had not until
then been operated in this country, and
started in to make steel rails for Amer
lean railroads. / bought the Home
stead works some time later. and by
1888 owned, with my associates. the
seven steel works in and about Pitts
burg which constitute the plant of the
Carnegie Steel company. the monthly
output of which is 100000 tons of zig
iron, and 100000 tons of steel rails.
Concentration is my motto-first hon
esty, then industry, then concentration
ANDREW CARNEGIE.
1890