In 2019, I did a multi-month series of blog posts across
several blogs about the first transcontinental railroad. Much to my surprise, I
recently learned some information about the 1862 Railway Act of which I was unaware.
Because the Union Pacific Rail Road was the ultimate winner of the race toward
the 100th Meridian on the Platte River – the point where the eastern portion of
the Transcontinental Road began – it was only this past week I realized there
had been another contender.
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| Leavenworth, Pawnee and Western Railway depot at Miltonvale, Kansas |
The railroad with its
roots in Kansas was a federally chartered railroad, backed with government land
grants. It began in
1855 as the Leavenworth, Pawnee and Western Railroad, and was later reorganized
in 1863 as the Union Pacific, Eastern
Division.
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| Union Pacific Railway Company, Eastern Division headquarters in Wyandotte, Kansas |
The UP Eastern was authorized by the United States
Congress as part of the Pacific Railway Act, in order to create, alongside the Union
Pacific, a second southerly branch of
the transcontinental railroad. The name "Kansas Pacific" was not
adopted until 1869. The original intent of the railroad was to build a line
west from Kansas City, Kansas across Kansas to Fort Riley, then north to join
the Union Pacific main line at Fort Kearny in Nebraska. The construction of the
line was motivated in part by the desire of the U.S. government to extend
transportation routes into Kansas, which had been the scene of ongoing conflict
between Union and Confederate sympathizers even prior to the start of the
American Civil War.
As early
as 1861 the territorial legislature of Kansas had chartered no fewer than 51
railroads. Practically see all of them were just that – charters.
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| Samuel Hallett |
On July 1,
1862, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific were authorized, and expectations
of rail travel began to escalate. Not much was accomplished to make it a
reality until two men, Samuel Hallett and John C Fremont, acquired controlling
stock in the Leavenworth, Pawnee and Western Railroad Company at the end of May
1863.
Hallett
was a young banker with offices in New York City. He helped build the Atlantic
and Great Western Railroad in the east. Fremont was the big name in exploration
in early Kansas and had made a great deal of money from the sale of his ranch
in California. Fremont was elected president of the new company and Hallett the
general superintendent. The name of their rail company was changed to the Union
Pacific Railway Company, Eastern Division.
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| John C. Fremont |
Although creating
competition between rail lines might not have been intentional, the law of July
1862 brought it about. This law, which established the Union Pacific and the
Central Pacific railroads, provided that the Union Pacific be built from the
100th Meridian Westward and the Central Pacific from the Pacific coast eastward.
They were to meet at the California-Nevada state line. If either got there
before the other, it was to build on until the lines were joined.
That
provision left the strip of land between the 100th Meridian and the Missouri
River without specific authorization. It was generally accepted that the first
railroad to reach that 100th Meridian on the Platte River would get the
contract to build on the rest of the railway to meet the Central Pacific.
Although
the section between the Missouri River to the 100th Meridian was scheduled to be
built west from Omaha, Fremont and Halleck felt confident that if their company
reached the 100th Meridian first, they would get the contract for the balance
of the job. Based on that, they named their company the Union Pacific Railway Company,
Eastern Division. Their plan was to build west from the Missouri along the
Kansas River, then turn up the Republican River. From there, they intended to continue
northwest to Fort Kearney on the Platte River in Nebraska, then westward to the
100th Meridian. The railroad would cut right through the inhabited part of
Kansas, and no one objected the tracks turning North into Nebraska. They
were better organized than the railroad company at Omaha, they had the people
of Kansas behind then, and they moved forward with confidence that they would
win the race.
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| Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division depot at Wamego, Kansas |
On July
2nd Congress pass an amendment to the railroad law granting the builders 12,800
acres of land on either side of the roadway for each mile of road built. This
amendment also practically assured that the first railroad to get us rails to
the 100th Meridian would get the right of way to build to meet the Central
Pacific. No one in eastern Kansas had any doubts that Hallett would win the
race easily he. He was far ahead of a line starting from the Omaha. Halleck moved
to Wyandotte, Kansas and set up the company’s headquarters there.
The
company soon ran into trouble. Fremont and Halleck sharply disagreed on several
issues. When it came time for elections, there were two meetings of
stockholders. At the meeting in the railroad company’s office, John D. Perry, president
of the Exchange Bank in St. Louis, Missouri, was elected president. In the
other meeting held at another site in town, Fremont was elected president.
However, Halleck pointed out that the eligibility to hold office depended on
the strength of the shares of stock held in the company. Four months before
either election, the company had assessed a ten percent payment on all stock.
None of those at the meeting that elected Fremont had paid their assessment,
which rendered the vote for Fremont ineligible.
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| The Seminole, a UPRWED engine |
On July
27, 1864, Hallett was killed by Orlando Talcott who had been brought to the
railroad construction work by Fremont. However, when Fremont lost out on spring
election, Talcott lost his job. After Samuel Hallett’s death, his brother,
John, took over the project. However, Hallett’s death and the process of
settling his estate, including the lawsuit brought by John D. Perry for the
shares he had been promised by Hallett as part of his accepting the position of
president, put a damper on the project.
Delay after delay
held up the work. Most of the work was being done on the bridge over the Kansas
River and on the line that would reach from the Pacific Railroad of Missouri to
the Union Pacific, Eastern Division. The war was absorbing both men and
materials, preventing John Hallett from getting the rails or the men he needed
to lay them. Another problem was a heavy investor in the project, Thomas
Durant, who also had a larg interest in the Union Pacific Railroad running out
of Omaha. He diverted most of the available material to that line. The Kansas
newspapers that followed the progress of this project closely expressed relief
when Durant’s representative, Silas Seymour, was dismissed from the work in
Kansas.
It soon became
apparent to the Kansas Branch of the Union Pacific that it was not going to reach
Fort Kearny ahead of the Omaha branch. Perry, then president of the Kansas
Branch proposed to make the best of a bad situation. He asked Congress for
permission to build his railroad up the Smoky Hill River to Denver – basically following
the route of the Butterfield Overland Despatch Stagecoach Company – rather than
up the Republican River to meet Nebraska line at Fort Kearney. Part of his
arguments included that the Smoky Hill Valley route was 134 miles closer to
Denver then the Republican route would be plus it had other benefits. On July
1, 1865, Congress finally let a new contract for the line to go to Denver,
Colorado.
That change pleased
the residents and businesses of Denver to no end since it gave them a more
direct line to the east. In 1869, the company adopted the name of Kansas
Pacific Railway. Its main line furnished a principal transportation route that
opened up settlement of the central Great Plains of Kansas and Colorado
Territory between Kansas City and Denver.
The Kansas Pacific
Railway was consolidated with the Union Pacific in 1880, and its main line
continues to be an integral part of the Union Pacific network today.
Although I refer to stagecoach travel, particularly along
the Smoky Hill Trail in all three of my novels in the Widows, Brides &
Secret Babies series, in my third book, railroads play a role. In September of
1867, my heroine, Penelope, finally leaves Lawrence, Kansas to marry the man
she met through correspondence. She is able to ride the train to the end of
track which, at first, is Buffalo Springs, a stagecoach station which, in 1867,
is run by Wells, Fargo & Company. The tracks soon arrive at Fort Hays where
my hero is temporarily assigned. However, between the availability of the railroad,
Penelope still travels by stagecoach. What an adventure!
Sources:
https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/railroads-in-kansas/15120
Trails of the Smoky Hill by Wayne C. Lee and Howard
C. Raynesford;
Caxton Press; Caldwell, Idaho: 2008
