168 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
while in command of the Missouri volunteers, at the battle of Okechobee in 
Florida. So far as is known to the writer this is the first instrumental survey of 
a railroad line ever made in the State. A copy of Guion's report may be found 
in the library of Major Rollins, in a bound volume of old pamphlets. It is pos- 
sible that the survey of the Marion City & Missouri Railroad may have been 
anterior to this, but no documentary proof thereof has been discovered. (See 
Laws of Missouri, 1836-39, page 253). 
The General Assembly elected that year chartered sixteen railroad compan- 
ies, and the one elected in 1838, created a "Board of Internal Improvements," 
consisting of five members, and the office of State Engineer, under whose direc- 
tion the Meramec, Osage, Grand, and Salt Rivers were surveyed for slack water 
navigation, and a line was run for a railroad from St. Louis to the Iron Mountain. 
This last survey was made by Major Morel, the State Engineer, in 1839, and has 
been erroneously claimed to have been the first railroad survey made in the State. 
(See Report of Thomas Allen, President St. Louis & Iron Mountain Railroad for 
1874). 
It was not, however, until July 4, 1851, that the work of railroad construc- 
tion actually commenced in Missouri. On that day ground was broken on the 
Pacific Railroad in St. Louis, Luther M. Kennett, Mayor of the city, casting the 
first shovel of earth. Austin A. King, Governor of the State, had been invited 
to perform that service, but failed to be present. Within the next four years the 
North Missouri, the Iron Mountain and the Hannibal & St. Joseph Companies also 
commenced work During the fifteen years following the St. Louis convention 
there had been a lively discussion of the subject of Internal Improvements, and 
particularly in the canvass preceding the election of 1848. Both the last message 
of the retiring governor, at the close of that year, and the inaugural address of 
the incoming governor made special reference to it. Our position was this : We 
wanted railroads, and did not have the money wherewith to build them. Foreign 
capital could be had only on the credit of the State and land mortgages. The 
only course to be pursued therefore, in order to obtain the thing desired, was the 
one pointed out by the St. Louis convention in 1836, and we adopted that course. 
The Pacific Railroad Company had been organized in March, 1850, with Thomas 
Allen as President. Individual citizens, the city and County of St. Louis, and 
counties along the line of the road manifested a willingness to subscribe liberally 
to the capital stock of the company, and in February, 1851, the State loaned its 
credit to that company to the amount of $2,000,000, and to the Hannibal & St. 
Joseph Company to the amount of $1,500,000. This first grant of State aid to 
railroads was soon followed by others, and during the next six years, our legisla- 
tures authorized loans to seven different companies, amounting to $24,950,000, of 
which $23,701,000 in State bonds bearing six percent interest, was legally deliv- 
ered to and used by the companies; to the Pacific Company $7,000,000, the 
Southwestern branch $4,500,000, the North Missouri $4,350,000, the Iron 
Mountain $3,501,000, the Hannibal & St. Joseph $3,000,000, the Platte Country 
$700,000, and the Cairo & Fulton $650,000. One bill passed in December, 1855,. 
