The Springfield herald., 1905-11-10
SAW FIRST RAILROAD
GROUND BROKEN JULY 4. 1928.
octosenarian Visiting Denver De.
scribes the First Railroad
Built in America.

6ulIt III america.
Born November A, 1878.
Just think what that means. To
ruffled shirts and laces, with breeches
and pumps.
But this is just what William G.
Clark of St. Louis, who is visiting in
Denver, can go back to and his recol-
lections OF his childhood and boyhood
read like an old tale of the revolution
airy days.
Mr.. Clark, who is now in his eighty
seventh year, is remarkably hand
some man and talks and acts more like
a man of fifty. He has pure white hair,
which he parts in the middle, and
complexion that any girl of twenty
might envy. For over thirty years he
has been enjoying life, having retired
from business with all the worlds
goods needed to indulge this desire.
He is visiting his daughter, Mrs. r.
]. Hudson of 1925 Corona street There
were fifteen children in the Clark fam
lily, five of whom died early in life. The
remaining ten lived SO that for thirty
eight years there was not a break, and
this did not occur until five years ago.
Mr.. Clark has his youngest daughter
with him and she is his constant com
panion In his travels. She Is young
and handsome and the only one of his
daughters who is now unmarried.
'.It was on July 4, 1925" said he,
that saw Charles Carroll of Carroll
ton digging the first spadeful of earth
for the laying of the Baltimore & Ohio
railroad. This was the first railway
built in this country and Mr.. Carroll
took up the earth with small silver
spade. l see this spade, with the first
locomotives run on this road, at all the
expositions that visit.
"Now, I am going to tell you some
thing that 1t will be hard for you to be-
lieve possible, but when you under
stand how the first road was built 1t
will be easy enough
at took them eight years to build to
Frederick City, which is fifty miles out
from Baltimore. They sent to North
Carolina for the wood TO make the ties,
and these were inlaid or mortised in
the center with yellow pine. On top
OF these carefully prepared ties there
were wooden rails held down by
wedges, and then on top of these were
iron rails one-half inch thick, two
inches wide and eighteen feet long.
when the road had been built out
twelve miles to Ellicott City there
were cars put on which were pulled
by three or four horses each. These
co<ohes would hold about fifty people,
and | have ridden in them many times
"Then locomotives were introduced.
At this time the passenger coaches
were built with wheels that had spokes
and not one solid piece, as they are
now. They had found that the yellow
pine of the ties was perishable, and
about 1880 to 1888 they began taking
out these and laid cut stone and put
the rails fiat on to this foundation. The
spikes were put in and molten lead
poured In to make them firm in the
holes that had to be previously cut into
the stone to allow them to enter. The
company brought stonecutters all the
way from Massachusetts to do this
work.
when they had laid about nine or
ten miles of this stone foundation, they
found that running the coaches over it
broke the spokes of the wheels, and SO
1t was discontinued. All of these
things will sound strange enough to
people in this day and generation.
"Since those days when l rode on
the primitive cars of that period and
on the first piece of railroad ever built,
l lave travelled all over this country in
the most modernly equipped railways.
but | shall never forget those. days |
over seventy years ago when we
looked upon that enterprise as the
modern world of today does upon all |
new inventions for transportation that |
are adding to its pleasure and rapid
News.