Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1916-05-29

to the United States. He had been
prompted by an odd incident. Accord
ing to the story that is told, a strange
traveller had stopped at the Hill farm
to take dinner, and left his horse at
the gate. Young Hill saw the animal
was tired and he carried it a pail of
water. The stranger was pleased with
the lads thoughtfulness, and as he
drove off he tossed him newspaper
from the United States, and called out
gravely:
Go there, young man. That coun-
try needs youngsters of your spirit"
Hill read the paper carefully. 1t con-
tanned glowing accounts of opportuni-
ties in the States. He resolved to in
vestigate for himself. 1t was the next
morning that he chopped his last tree.
AS a mere roustabout lad of IS, he
toured from Maine TO Minnesota. When,
in 1856, he disembarked from Mis-
sissippi river packet at st. Paul that
place was a frontier town of 5000 in
habitants. At the sign of ". j. Bass
& Co, agents for the Dubuque & St.
Paul Packet company, he found job
as both stevedore and clerk.
Seized Opportunities.
In the 10 years that followed he
seized every opportunity to study the
whole problem of river transportation.
He gathered no end of experience and
a little capital with which he launched
his own firm of Hill, Griss &; Co., which
promptly displayed its initiative by
bringing the first load of coal that had
ever been seen in that section into St.
Paul. Two years later, with a fiat
bottomed steamer he established the
first regular communication with St.
Paul and the Manitoba ports Of the fer
tile Red river valley.
At about that time st. Paul was hav-
| ing its first experiment in railroad
building. Eighty miles had been laid
to ST Cloud, 316 miles to Breckenridge,
both of which terminals were at the
southern end of the Red river valley,
and there were about 100 miles of track
which began nowhere and ended in
that same indefinite spot This ven
ture ran up a debt of $33 100000 and
collapsed. with its only assets being
"a few streakS of rust and right OF
way"
Hill had had sufficient success in the
region to be seized with a consuming
desire to purchase the defunct prop
erty. After five years of financial dick
ering, including the sale of all his 9TH
er interests, which netted a fortune of
500 900. he and a syndicate of three
others-Sir Donald A Smith, George
Stephen and Norman W. kittson,-ob-
tanned the object of this desire.
Made Head of "Manit0ba.'
The st. Paul, Minnesota and Mani
toba railroad was formed to operate
the property, with Hill as general man
ager. When in 1888 Mr. Hill was elect
ed president he undertook the extern
sion of the road from its Dakota and
Minnesota homestead to the Pacific
ocean. He was confronted by three
great competitors to the south, each of
which had received big bonuses as
government aid, whereas the Mani
toba" or the Great Northern, as it came
to be known, did not have dollar OF
government subsidy or an acre of
grant to forward its progress from the
Minnesota boundary TO the sea-
In this light. Hills plan was widely
deemed pure folly, but he pressed it
to conclusion by building and populat-
ing as he built. For several years he
laid rails westward at the rate of a
mile a day, and at cost of 100000 a
mile, and as he went he left trail of
embryonic farms by the railside.
With the line to Puget Sound once
laid, he turned empire builder. He in
trOduced the live stock industry into
vast areas OF bunch-grass plains, and
developed them by importing blooded
stock; he sent demonstration trains
through the country with men who