The mirror., 1923-05-31
Saltwater Minnesota Thursday May 81, 1923.

not destined to stop while in this super
fetal state. About this time, 1928, there
came rumor from England about a
man named Stephenson who had invented
a steam wagon that would run on rails; !;
a powerful and speedy contraption scien-
titcaly named by engineers, locomotive.
The news of this neoterical invention
caused quite stir within the railroad
circles in America, so the executives of
the zone horse" roads got together and
sent an agent across the sea to investi-
gate. This man returned to New Eng
land in January, 1929, and gave a stir
ring account of the operation and success
of the "steam wagon" A few months
later the Stourbourg Lion arrived, the first
of four locomotives which he had pur-
chased in England. (It was custom at
that time to christen locomotives as we
do our steamships today. This locomo-
tive weighed seven tons and was set
upon specially constructed track of
wooden rails capped with iron. On
August 9th it was fired up to be viewed
and examined by large crowd of cur
ious onlookers. When the engineer was
ready to start it on the initial trip, he
invited some of the foremost citizens to
ride with him, but those sagacious souls
cared too much for their precious necks
to go joyriding on such wicked looking
monster. Not SO, the engineer; he threw
the throttle clear out on the 'coal pile"
and amid the wild and turbulent cheers
Of the crowd rode dashing away at the
great speed of about ten miles an hour.
That was the first locomotive to turn a
wheel in America. Then they started
to build them in this country and in the
fall of 1880, the Friend of Charleston, the
first locomotive of American manufacture,
was put into service. 1t was capable of
drawing five or six cars or carriages,
hauling about fifty people, at speed of
fifteen to twenty miles an hour, and was
the first locomotive in this country to stay
in regular service.
Such was the beginning of our Ameri-
can railroads. For awhile they were con-
fined mostly to the New England states,
but as the people became more accustomed
to and interested in them, and when the
Astors and the Goulds began to sinvest
their millions in the development of the
railways, they gradually pushed to the
Middle West and finally cut to the Far
West. Development came to us by con-
ouering the wilderness. AS the railroads
have reached out step by step, rearing
communities where desolation had been,
they have made it possible for us to de-
V eop these three millions of square miles
of the United States. The East was set
tied first and all of the nations industries
were situated there. AS the railroad
developed, business and industry pushed
steadily westward, followed by the popu-
lation. In 1900 the center of poulation
was a few miles west of New York; by
1860 it had reached the Alleghanies. 1t
has since moved across Ohio and Indiana,
and at present is situated about one hun
dred and fifty miles east of St. Louis.
Today we have nearly twenty great
railroad systems traversing the United
States. These main lines are divided into
four sections of the country. the East,
West, North, and South; and they have
control over hundreds of smaller lines.
The aggregate mileage of our railroads
is somewhere around 250,- page 2, COL a)