Paxson—Early Raihvays of the Old Northwest. 
261 
that was centered on the Wabash and the Pittsburg, Pt. Wayne, 
and Chicago was watching also a road that left the Mississippi 
at East St. Louis, and was open to the Illinois Central junction 
at Sandoval in 1854. This was the Ohio and Mississippi, a 
mystic road that was to supplement the river and play into the 
hands of Cincinnati and St. Louis, its terminal points. 'No¬ 
where between the two did its right of way enter a city of im¬ 
portance save Vincennes, whose fame Was legendary rather 
than commercial.. East of Cincinnati, the Marietta and Cin¬ 
cinnati continued the course of this “American Central Pail- 
road Line,” 1 to the mouth of the Muskingum, where it just 
i Smith, W. P., The Book of the Great Railway Celebrations of 1857, 
(New York, D. Appleton and Co., 1858), Introd. p. v. 
