Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-05-29
Blazed Transportation Trail.


| James j. Hill discovered the bread
/ basket OF the world" in the great
northwest; he led in its development
| from a wilderness into what now COM
prises six wealthy states; dotted WIN Win
| 100000 farms, and he blazed a trail
/ for transportation which reached
eventually from Buffalo to Asia, with
| a total mileage of rail and steamship
facilities that would nearly girdle the
earth.
That but roughly spans the story Of
| his achievement.
Near Guelph. in Ontario. where James
j. tJerome) Hill was born in 1888, the
son of an Irish Canadian farmer who
died when the boy was fifteen. there
| stands a tree stump labeled: The last
tree chopped BY James j. Hill" 1t
| marked the lads resolution to go to the
United States. He had been prompted
by an odd incident Accoring to the
story that is told. strange traveller had
stopped at the Hill farm to take dinner
and left his horse at the gate; 1oun
Hill saw the animal was tired ana ne
carried it pail of water. The stranger
was pleased with the lads thoughtful-
ness, and as he drove off he tossed MN
a newspaper from the United States,
and called out gravelN:
Go there. young man. That country
needs youngsters of your spirit.
/ Hill read the paper carefully. 1t con-
tanned glowing accounts of opportunl-
ties in the states. He resolved TO IN
vestigate for himself 1t was the next
morning that he chopped ms last tree
| AS mere roustabout lad of eight
cen he toured from Maine to Mime
sofa. When. in 1856. he disemberked
+! from a Mississippi river packet at st
| Paul that place was frontier town
| of 5000 Inhabitants At the sign Of
| W. j. Bass & Co.. agents for the Du-
buque and st. Paul Packet Company.
he found a job as both stevedore and
| clerk.
Studied Whole Problem.
| In the fifteen years that followed he
seized every opportunity to study the
whole problem of river transportation.
He gathered no end of experience and
little capital with which he launched
| his own firm of Hill, Griss & Co, which
| promptly displayed it's 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
fertile Red River valley.
! At about that time St Paul was hav-
| ing it's first experiment in railroad
| building. Eighty miles had been laid
to St. Cloud, 316 miles to Brecken-
ridge, both of which terminals were at
the southern end of the Red River Val
/
track which began nowhere and end
| ed in that same indefinite spot" This
venture ran up a debt of $50, 100000 and
! collapsed, with its only assets being "a
| few streaks of rust and a right of
way"
Hill had had sufficient success in the
! region TO be seized with a consuming
( desire to purchase the defunct prop
i erty. After FIVE years of financial
dickering, including the sale of all his
I n: he io-a irt, rod
/ of 100000, he formed a syndicate with
! three others-Sir Donald A Smith,
| George Stephen and Norman kfttson-
and obtained the object of his desire
| The St. Paul, Minnesota and Mani
| toba railway was formed to operate
| the property. with Hill as general man
| ager. When, in 1883. Mr.. Hill was
| elected president he undertook the eX-
| tension of the road from its Dakota
| and Minnesota homestead to the Pa
| cif1c ocean. He was confronted by
! three great competitors to the south,
each of which had received big bonuses
as government aid. whereas the Man
itoba, or the Great Northern. S 1t came
to be known, did not have a dollar of
| government subsidy or an acre of grant
| to forward its progress from the Min
nesota boundary to the sea
| In this light Hills plan was widely
| deemed pure folly, but he pressed it
to conclusion by building and popu-
lating as he built For several years
| he laid rails westward at the rate of
q mile day, at cost of $4,000 a
| mile, and as he went he left a trail of
embryonic farms by the railside.