HISTORICAL MEMOIR 



OF THE 



PACIFIC RAILROAD OF MISSOURI, 



Previous to 1850, little or no attention had been given to 

 the subject of internal improvements in the State of Missouri. 

 A Board of Improvement had been created in 1840, but nothing 

 further was done than to make a survey for a railroad from St. 

 Louis to the Iron Mountain, by the way of Big river, and some 

 surveys of the Osage river, with a view of improving its navi- 

 gation. 



The subject of a railroad across the continent having been 

 discussed in various quarters, for several years, Col. Benton, 

 then U. S. Senator for Missouri, on the 7th of February, 1849, 

 introduced a bill into the United States Senate to provide for 

 the location and construction of a Central National Road from 

 the Pacific Ocean to the Mississippi river to be an iron rail- 

 way where practicable, and a wagon road were a railway was 

 not practicable and proposed to set apart seventy-five per cent, 

 of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands in Oregon and 

 California, and fifty per cent, of the proceeds of all other sales 

 of the public lands, to defray the costs of its location and con- 

 struction. 



On the 20th February, a spirited public meeting was held 

 at the Court-house in St. Louis, and a series of resolutions, in- 

 troduced by Thomas Allen, was adopted, requesting the Legis- 

 lature, then in session, to grant a charter and right of way, &c., 

 for a railway across the State, from St. Louis to the western 

 boundary. 



