The Railroad Builders | Page 3

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Title: The Railroad Builders, A Chronicle of the Welding of the States
Author: John Moody

THIS BOOK, VOLUME 38 IN THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA
SERIES, ALLEN JOHNSON, EDITOR, WAS DONATED TO
PROJECT GUTENBERG BY THE JAMES J. KELLY LIBRARY OF
ST. GREGORY'S UNIVERSITY; THANKS TO ALEV AKMAN.
Scanned by Dianne Bean. Proofread by Stephanie Manke.
THE RAILROAD BUILDERS, A CHRONICLE OF THE WELDING
OF THE STATES BY JOHN MOODY
NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS TORONTO:
GLASGOW, BROOK & CO. LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1919
CONTENTS
I. A CENTURY OF RAILROAD BUILDING II. THE COMMODORE
AND THE NEW YORK CENTRAL III. THE GREAT
PENNSYLVANIA SYSTEM IV. THE ERIE RAILROAD V.
CROSSING THE APPALACHIAN RANGE VI. LINKING THE
OCEANS VII. PENETRATING THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST VIII.
BUILDING ALONG THE SANTA FE TRAIL IX. THE GROWTH
OF THE HILL LINES X. THE RAILROAD SYSTEM OF THE
SOUTH XI. THE LIFE WORK OF EDWARD H. HARRIMAN XII.
THE AMERICAN RAILROAD PROBLEM BIBLIOGRAPHY

THE RAILROAD BUILDERS

CHAPTER I
. A CENTURY OF RAILROAD BUILDING
The United States as we know it today is largely the result of
mechanical inventions, and in particular of agricultural machinery and
the railroad. One transformed millions of acres of uncultivated land
into fertile farms, while the other furnished the transportation which
carried the crops to distant markets. Before these inventions appeared,
it is true, Americans had crossed the Alleghanies, reached the
Mississippi Valley, and had even penetrated to the Pacific coast; thus in
a thousand years or so the United States might conceivably have
become a far-reaching, straggling, loosely jointed Roman Empire,
depending entirely upon its oceans, internal watercourses, and imperial
highways for such economic and political integrity as it might achieve.
But the great miracle of the nineteenth century--the building of a new

nation, reaching more than three thousand miles from sea to sea, giving
sustenance to more than one hundred million free people, and diffusing
among them the necessities and comforts of civilization to a greater
extent than the world had ever known before is explained by the
development of harvesting machinery and of the railroad.
The railroad is sprung from the application of two fundamental
ideas--one the use of