RAILROADS. 



SOI 



47,000,000 acres, or 73.000 square miles an area 

 larger than the States of Ohio and Indiana, and equal 

 to a belt of land 40 miles wide and 1850 miles long. 

 The grant was conditioned upon the construction of the 

 road within a period of 15 years, or by the 4th of July, 

 1879. Lands, however, in the ratio of the whole grant 1 

 to the mileage, were to be certified to the company as ' 

 fast as the construction progressed that is, upon the 

 completion of sections of 20 miles each. 



By act of Congress, approved July 27, 1866, the At- 

 lantic and Pacifie Railroad Company was chartered to 

 construct a railroad on the 35th parallel route from j 

 Springfield. Mo., to the Pacific Ocean, about 2 KX) 

 miles, across the Indian Territory, Texas, New Mexico, 

 Arizona, and California, as a main line, and from Van 

 Buren, Ark., to the point where the main line strikes 

 the Canadian River in the Indian Territory as a branch 

 line. To this company Congress granted lands to the 

 extent of 12,800 acres per mile of road in the States 

 an 1 2'),600 acres per mile of road in the Territories. 

 The land grant to this road nailed for 42,000,000 acres, 

 or about 70.0'K) square miles. 



The next Paciiic railroad chartered by Congress was 

 the Texas Pacific Railroad Company, which Was incor- 

 porated by act of March 3, 1871, and authorized to 

 build from Marshall, Texas, to El Paso, thence through 

 New Mexico and Arizona to a point on the Rio Colo- 

 rado, at or near the south-western boundary of Cali- 

 fornia, and thence to San Diego. This was the most 

 southerly route of all lines chartered, and is known as 

 the 32 J parallel route. Its land grant was of the same 

 proportion per mile as that of the Atlantic and Pa- 

 ciuV-12,800 acres in the States and 25,600 acres in the 

 Territories. 



Upon none of these roads was any considerable prog- 

 ress made in building in the period now under consid- 

 eration that is, from the close of the war until the 

 panic of 1873. A vigorous effort was made toward the 

 extension and completion of the Northern Pacific, and 

 in three ami one-naif years from the beginning of 

 work, July, 1870, to the date of default on its inter- 

 est payments, Jan. 1, 1874, there had been completed 

 and opened for business 424 miles of road on the east- 

 ern end from a point 23 miles west of Duluth westward 

 to the Missouri River in Dakota and on the western 

 end 05 miles from Kalama to Tenino. The Atlantic 

 and Pacific Railroad was able to complete only 125 

 miles of its line from Springfield west before the 

 suspension of work, while on the Texas Pacific work 

 bad been only just begun. 



In New England during this period railroad mileage 

 jncreased nearly 2500 miles ; in the Middle States the 

 increase was 6070 miles, about 75 per cent. ; in the 

 South it increased 4<K)0 miles (44 per cent.), and in the 

 Pacific States the increase was from 166 miles to 2193 

 miles. But the great increase of this period was in 

 the Western and .South-western States, aa is shown in 

 the following statement : 



1864. 



38 

 451 



12,986 



At the close of 1873 the total capital investment in 

 all the railroads of the United States was $3,784,543,- 

 034, represented by share capital to the amount of 

 $1,947,638.584, and bonded debts to the amount of 

 $1,836,904,450. This vast aggregate represented also 

 the cost of the 70.651 miles of railroad then in opera- 

 tion, the average cost per mile for the whole 

 country at that time equalling $00,057. In New 



England the average cost was $47,850 per mile ; in 

 the Middle States, $07,737 per mile ; in the 

 Western States, $52, 1 25 per mile ; in the 

 Southern States, $36,994 per mile, and in the Pacific 

 States, $95,590 per mile. The maximum cost per 

 mile was in New Jersey, where it averaged $115,829 ; 

 the minimum was in Florida, where the average was 

 only $18,445 per mile. 



Table II. shows by groups of States, for 1873, the 

 number of inhabitants to one uiile of railroad ; the 

 number of square miles of territory to one mile of rail- 

 road ; the amount of gross earnings of railroad per in- 

 habitant and per mile of road ; the percentage of gross 

 earnings to cost ; the percentage of net earnings to 

 cost ; and the percentage of dividend payments to capital 

 stock. 



The increase of mileage from 1871 to 1873 had been 

 21,623 miles, and the increase of the cost of the roads 

 $1,119,915,389. One cause for the excessive mileage 

 built within a few years was the extraordinary effort 

 to complete roads, in order to save from lapsing the 

 vast grants made by Congress, on condition that the 

 roads should be built within a certain time. But the 

 increase was far beyond the possibility of speedy re- 

 turns for the capital invested. That much land could 

 be found unoccupied near the line of a railroad im- 

 plied a sparse population, and although prairie soil 

 could quickly be brought into cultivation, it would be 

 long before there could be sufficient traffic to pay the 

 interest on other cost of the roads. Excessive compe- 

 tition and speculation in railroad building and railroad 

 bonds and etocks ensued until, in September, 1 873, the 

 great financial storm which has since passed into his- 

 tory as the " panic of 1873," burst upon the country. 

 On the 20th of that month the New York Stock 

 Exchange was closed by order of the Executive 

 Committee, BO great was the excitement, and was not 

 opened again until the end of November. During the 

 period of excessive speculation through which the 

 country had passed, schemes of the most impossible or 

 improbable kind had been freely floated, and it ap- 

 peared as though the majority of people had virtually 

 parted with all discretion. 



Fifth Period. After this fitful fever had culminated 

 in the panic, the building of railroads fell off for two 

 years, but in 1876 there was an evident recovery of 

 tone. The second period of depression may be con- 

 sidered as lasting from 1873 to 1879. In 1873 the to- 

 tal mileage of lines constructed in the United States 

 was 4097 miles. In the next year the total was only 

 2117 miles ; in 1875 it fell off to 1711 miles ; in 1876 

 there were built 2712 miles; in 1877, 2280, and in 

 1878, 2629 miles, the total during these five years 

 being 11,449 miles, an average of only 2290 miles. 



Sixth Period. During 1879 matters began to im- 

 prove throughout the country, and this feeling soon 

 became reflected through the railroads. In that year 

 construction increased nearly 100 per cent over the 

 preceding year. 



The following statement shows the total mileage of 

 railroads in operation at the close of each year from 

 1874 to 1887, with the annual increase in mileage: 



Year. 



1874. 

 1875. 

 1876. 

 1877. 

 1878. 

 1879. 

 1880. 



Miles Increase, 

 operated. 



72,385 2,117 

 1,711 

 2,712 

 2,280 

 2,629 

 4,746 

 6,876 



74,096 

 7fi,808 

 79,088 

 81,717 

 86,463 

 93,349 



During these 14 years there were built 79,645 miles 

 of new railroad, an increase of over 112 per cent. ; thai 

 is, in the last fourteen years we built 9400 miles of rail- 

 road more than we built in the preceding 44 years. 

 The first five of these fmirtcen years comprised what 

 we have termed the second period of depression ; the 



