Omaha daily bee., 1902-09-07
FROM STAGE TO RAILROAD
"Reminiscences Of Western Life During the
Period Of Transition.
on THE PLAINS BEFORE the CHANGE
wonderful Contrasts Between the
Coach Driver and the Modern
EnEineer-FabulOus Speed
I'm Railroad BuildinE.

The piles Of old tin cans that marked
the construction camps Of the western
railroads are being scattered now, and the
drifting desert sand is celebrating a once
plain record. Years ago the bright labels
fell off the cans and the rust began to
gnaw at them, says a writer In the New
York Evening Post, but II is only within
the last few years, under the vigorous
housekeeping methods Of the younger
generation of railroad men. u~nhampered
by tradition, that these old tins have been
carted away from the track side to return
to the dement's from a dump heap at the
head OF some deep canyon. The old men,
going back and forth from Omaha or Kan
sas City to San Francisco, miss those piles
Of rusty cans, and are provoked to tell
their old meaning to the younger travel
ers. But the young traveller says he lie
glad they "carted all that rubbish out of
sight, for, you know, a fellow does not
travel to look at that sort Of thing"
There Is the gulf-the old man sees 1T
between generation and generations The
old man sits back silent and goes over In
his own mind once more the wonderful
story he lived through, from 1864 to 1869,
The young mar wonder how 1t is that
every man he meets past 60 insists on
stufnng him with such awful lies" A
man lives and work in his own genera
tion-rightly enough he things his W age
the most significant in the worlds his
tory. And yet, to the old westerner, 1t
seems a pity that his work should be dis
regarded. It was so full Of big purpose.
so vital, so swift, 30 manfully done that
he wishes It might come q little closer to
to the young men than the vague para
-. - .oAaal htaknFv M Nha dugfV
memoir on a secondhand book store shelf.
Old Stage Days.
In 1855 the old man had staged from Atchi-
son, Kan, to the mountains, across the
mountains to the deserts Of Nevada, and
from this waste Of alkali and sage across
the Sierra Nevadas, down to the rich plains
of California, and to the hurlyburly OF cos
mopolitan San Francisco. He remembers
his starting place as a kind OF big stock
yards and camp meeting combined, from
which constantly trooped forth long wagon
trains, drawn by mules and oxen, laden with
sawmill and mining machinery, plo"s'
grain, food, clothes, whisky and the inevi-
table cases Of canned goods. He saw these
trains return empty, grimy with the prairie
dust, the cattle gaunt and the men scared
by the prairie sun. He saw the Wild ca
TOuHHlH. the DTdWlbe Nut ANOQuCAN 70 va
the Indian attacks, the Mormon
prosecutions, the good and bad the ugly
and beautiful, the days work, and the
dreamIess sleep after. Il all wen forward
with such q compelling force that the next
step-the railroad-excited no contem-
porary wonder.
business overwhelmed the staging COM
pauies and the ~freighters, so the railroads
had to be built. Ben Holiday, with his
5000 horses and mules, and his 300 coaches,
could not handle the passengers hat went
back and forth over that 1000 miles OF
plain and mountain. So the railroad was
built and the difficulties were surmounted,
as a matter Of course. 1t took the rail-
road builders q dozen years to realize that
they had done a remarkable thing when
they pushed the steel rails from the Mis-
aouri river to San Francisco in the four
years from 1864 to 1868. During those
wears the world was full Of talk Of the i'm
mense fortunes gained, from the govern
ment bounties and rich land grants, by
Governor Stanford, G. p. Huntington,
Crocker and Oliver Ames-the splendid
achievement Of these men Of energy was
accepted as part Of the days labor.
With a government money bounty OF
$50, 900 to the average mile, and with the
grant Of every alternate section Of land
on each side Of the road for twenty miles,
with local grants to the California COM
pany worth $4,000. 900, the westerner Of
'65 did not see why a railroad should not
be built rapidly. Blu to the man who came
upon the scene fresh from the east, with no
personal prejudices, the achievement seemed
wonderful. Writing of this work In 1863
Samuel BoWies, editor Of the Springfield Re-
publican, saysi
beginning of Construction.
''There will speedily be other railroads
across our continent. The rivalries OF sec
lions, the temptations Of commerce. the
necessities of our political system, Will
add at least two more through lines within
a generations time. But this, the first,
will forever remain the one OF history the
one OF romance. Its construction In so
short a time was the greatest triumph Of
modern civilization, OF all civilization, in
deed.
1.-THE work was seriously begun on the