THE RAILROADS OF THE “OLD NORTHWEST” 
BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR. 
Frederic L. Paxson. 
In most of the works which make any mention of railway 
transportation it is stated that the second quarter of the last 
century was a period of exceeding activity, and that between the 
financial crisis of 1837 and 1857 the foundations of the Ameri¬ 
can railroad system were securely laid. Occasionally this 
statement is supported with maps and tables purporting to 
show when and where the earliest lines of the system were es¬ 
tablished. But it takes only a brief examination of these to 
leam that few attempts have been made to authenticate the 
figures. It would be dangerous to say that no accurate railroad 
maps exist for the period before the civil war, but it is certain 
that none such are in frequent use. 
It is particularly true that the railroads of the Old Northwest 
await their historian. For even the most commonplace facts 
concerning these the investigator must go to scattered, incom¬ 
plete, and inaccurate sources, which, at best, are to be found in 
only a few of the greatest libraries. To remedy this defect has 
been the attempt of a group of students in the University of 
Wisconsin, who have recently gathered and systematized much 
of the material necessary fpr a statement of the annual railroad 
construction in the Old Northwest before the civil war. 1 The 
results of their work have aided in the preparation of a series 
of maps and tables, from which a few preliminary generaliza¬ 
tions may be drawn. 
The most important compilation of statistics of railway con- 
i Lillian E. Cook, Helen Freer, Andrew E. Hansen, and John W. 
Rodewald, in History 21, First Semester, 1910-11. 
