The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1903-11-13
Chicago's First Railway Half Century

Under the above heading the Railway
Age, in referring to the recent centennial
celebration of the city of Chicago, said:
The world had not heard of railways in
1903. 1t was about % years after the start
ing of Chicago before the first locomotive
went into service in the United States. AS
early as 1886 few far-seeing men among the
pioneers in the country between Lake Michi-
gan and the Mississippi river determined
that railway ought to be built to Galena, an
ambitious town In the lead mining regions,
ITO miles to the northwest of this point.
They secured charter for the Galena & Chi
cago Union railroad, giving Galena the
honor of precedence in the title, because it
was the more important place. Why was it
determined that the first railroad should
start for Galena from this little town on
Lake Michigan? Simply because there were
few men here of the railway building
spirit. These men might have started
Chicago at some other point on the lake
more attractive by nature than this. The
pioneer railway was to determine the loca-
ton of the greatest railway center in the
world, and when William B. Ogden and his
associates determined that here should be
the starting point of the railway to unite
Galena with the lake, they did the thing
which made Chicago.
II was II years after the charter was
granted before the first piece of road was
completed. The panic of 1887 stopped the
surveys, and construction was not begun
until l847, but on November 20, 1913, the
first train from Chicago west to Harlem, 10
miles. Within three years it had reached
Eligin, 43 miles, and by 1854 had been ex-
tended to Freeport, 100 miles westerly from
Chicago, where it stopped for good. The
Galena road never reached Galena. The
gap of 81 miles between Freeport and the
original goal of its ambition was substantial
ly filled by the construction of the Illinois
Central on its way to Dubuque, and the
Galena & Chicago Union company, having
decided on a more direct line to the Mis-
sissippi river, built the Dixon Air Line"
from Turner Junction on the old road, 80
miles west of Chicago, on to the Mississippi,
which was reached at the end of 1855. The
pioneer road had built branch, from Bel
videre, ILL.,, into Wisconsin and was propos-
ing an extension to the northwest when a
competitor, under the name of the Chicago
st. Paul & Fond du Lac, began to build road
direct from Chicago into the same Wisconsin
territory. That road became the Chicago
q Northwestern, and its line now forms the
Wisconsin division of the present company.
In 1864 the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad
company was consolidated with the Chicago
& Northwestern Railway company and disap-
peared from the scene of action. In 1866 the
Chicago & Northwestern absorbed the Chi
cago & Milwaukee and Milwaukee & Chicago
railroad companies, which had built a line
between the places named in their titles, and
this was the origin of the Milwaukee division
of the Northwestern road. The Chicago X
Northwestern system and the entire railway
system of the Northwest therefore, started
in l84S from the Galena & Chicago Union
road and it was fitting that to commemorate
the Inauguration of the tremendous inter-
est to which Chicago owes so much the city
should place in the wall of the modern
Northwestern Railway station tablet mark
ing the site of the first railway depot in
Chicago.