EARLY RAILROAD AGITATION—THE FIRST RAILROAD—CELEBRATING THE ADVENT OF THE RAILROAD—OTHER ROADS CONSTRUCTED—THE SANTA FE—THE ATCHISON & NEBRASKA CITY—THE KANSAS CITY, LEAVENWORTH & ATCHISON—THE ROCK ISLAND—THE HANNIBAL & ST. JOSEPH—THE FIRST TELEGRAPH—MODERN TRANSPORTATION.

Eight years before the last stage pulled out of Atchison the agitation for a railroad began. The first charter provided for the construction of a railroad from Atchison to St. Joseph. As appeared in an earlier chapter, the city council of Atchison at its first meeting called an election March 15, 1858, to vote on a proposition to subscribe for $100,000 in stock. The election was held in the store of the Burnes Brothers, and S. H. Petefish, Charles E. Woolfolk and Dr. C. A. Logan were judges of election. The proposition carried almost unanimously, and, in addition to the stock subscribed for by the city, the citizens of the town subscribed for $100,000 in stock individually. The following May the contract for the construction of the road was awarded to Butcher, Auld & Dean at $3,700 per mile. There were fourteen other bidders. The members of the firm which made the successful bid were: Ephraim Butcher, David Auld, James Auld and William Dean. Work of construction was started May 12, 1858, but was not finished until February 22, 1860. The completion of this road to Atchison was of very far reaching importance. The town was wild with excitement, for the new railroad gave the town its first direct rail connection with the east. Its terminus at Winthrop (East Atchison) was the first western point east of the Rocky mountains reached by a railroad at that time in the United States, save one. The first railroad built between the Mississippi and the 175Missouri rivers was the Hannibal & St. Joseph, which was completed to St. Joseph February 23, 1859, and the new railroad from Atchison connected with the Hannibal & St. Joseph at the latter point.

Richard B. Morris was the first conductor of the Atchison road, and he subsequently became internal revenue collector of Kansas under Cleveland. Following the completion of the road, a great celebration was held at Atchison June 13, 1860, and the people not only celebrated the completion of the St. Joseph line, but also the breaking of ground on the Atchison & Pike’s Peak railroad, now the Central Branch. Great preparations were made for the celebration weeks in advance and promptly following the hour of 12 o’clock on the morning of June 13, 1860, the firing of 100 guns at intervals began, which was kept up with monotonous regularity until daybreak. Flags and bunting fluttered from poles and windows throughout the city, and a special train of invited guests from the East arrived at Winthrop before noon with flags flying and bands playing. The passenger steamer, “Black Hawk,” loaded to the guards with citizens from Kansas City, reached Atchison early in the morning, and leading citizens also came from Wyandotte, Leavenworth, Lawrence, Topeka and other towns. The city had been cleaned up and put in holiday attire by the city authorities. The town had never before presented such a gay appearance. Frank A. Root in his interesting book, “The Overland Stage to California,” who was present at the celebration, has perhaps written the most interesting account of this event that has ever been printed. He says:

“In the procession that formed along Second street, one of the unique and attractive features was a mammoth government wagon trimmed with evergreens and loaded with thirty-four girls dressed in white, representing every State in the union and the Territory of Kansas. There were three other wagons filled with little girls similarly dressed, representing all the forty-one counties of Kansas in its last year of territorial existence.

“One of the contractors for government freighting had a huge prairie schooner, drawn by twenty-nine yoke of oxen, the head of each animal ornamented with a small flag, while he himself was mounted upon a mule. The contractor was quite an attraction, dressed in the peculiar western prairie and plains frontier cow-boy costume with buckskin pants, red flannel shirt, boots nearly knee high, with revolver and bowie knife buckled around his waist, dangling by his side. The procession in line, marched west along Commercial street to near Tenth. It was a long one and it was estimated that there were 7,000 people in it and at least 10,000 in the city witnessing 176the festivities. The ceremony of breaking ground for these two roads took place about noon, but there was nothing particularly imposing about it. The most important part of the ceremonies was the turning over of a few spadefuls of dirt by Col. Peter T. Abell, president of the road, and Capt. Eph. Butcher, the contractor, who built the Atchison & St. Joseph road. The event was witnessed by fully 5,000 people, after which the monster procession formed, and, headed by a brass band, and other bands at different places in the line, marched across White Clay creek to the grove in the southwest part of the city, where the oration was delivered by Benj. F. Stringfellow. Following the oration several speeches were made by the most prominent of the invited guests, one of them by Col. C. K. Holliday, of Topeka, one of the founders of the great Santa Fe system. The barbeque was an important feature of the affair. Six beeves, twenty hogs, and over fifty sheep, pigs and lambs were roasted. There was also prepared more than one hundred boiled hams, several thousand loaves of bread, cakes by the hundred, besides sundry other delicacies to tickle the palate and help make the occasion one long to be remembered by all present. The exercises were quite elaborate and wound up with a ball in the evening at A. S. Parker’s hall on the west side of Sixth street, between Commercial and Main and a wine supper in Charley Holbert’s building on Second street, just north of the Massasoit House. Many visitors came from a long distance east, some as far as New England. Most of the Northern States were represented, and a few came from the South. Free transportation was furnished the invited guests. Hundreds came by rail and steamboat and many poured in from the surrounding country for miles, in wagons and on horseback, from eastern Kansas and western Missouri.”

While a strong movement for the construction of railroads was started in 1860, it was soon discovered that much progress could not be made in the face of the unsettled conditions brought on by the Civil war, and, as a result a further effort in that direction, was, for the time being, abandoned. However, Luther C. Challiss did not give up his idea of projecting a road to the West, and to him more than to anybody else belongs the credit of starting the first road west out of Atchison. He obtained a charter for the building of the Atchison & Pike’s Peak railroad and this company was organized February 11, 1859, but on account of the war was not opened to Waterville until January 20, 1868. Challiss obtained possession of 150,000 acres of land from the Kickapoo Indians by a treaty, and, upon the organization of the company he was elected president. The land he secured from the 177Indians was, for the most part, located in Atchison county, around Muscotah, and adjoining counties. With Mr. Challiss were associated Charles B. Keith, who was the agent of the Kickapoo Indians, George W. Glick and Senators Pomeroy and Lane. In the charter for this road provision was made for its construction 100 miles west of Atchison. Col. William Osborn, who had constructed the west half of the Hannibal & St. Joseph railroad, built the first section of the Central Branch to Waterville. He named the town after his old home in New York, where he was born. It was proposed at this point to make a connection with a branch running from Kansas City to Ft. Kearney, Neb., but the Kansas City road was subsequently changed to Denver, and for this reason it has been said the Central Branch was not completed to Denver, as originally planned.

The Atchison & Pike’s Peak Railroad Company was incorporated by special act of the Territorial legislature of the Territory of Kansas, chapter 48, “Private Laws of Kansas, 1859,” and authorized to construct a railroad from Atchison to the western boundary of the Territory in the direction of Pike’s Peak. Subsequently, the Atchison & Pike’s Peak Railroad Company became the assignee of all the rights, privileges and franchises of the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad Company, given and granted under an Act of Congress, of July 8, 1862, Twelfth Statute, page 489, entitled: “An Act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean, and to secure to the government the use of same for postal, military and other purposes,” which provided that the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad Company might extend its road from St. Joseph via Atchison, to connect and unite with a railroad in Kansas, provided for in said Act, for one hundred miles in length next to the Missouri river, and might, for that purpose, use any railroad charter, which had, or might have been granted, by the legislature of Kansas. Accordingly, the work of construction from Atchison west was inaugurated under the name of the Atchison & Pike’s Peak Railroad Company. On January 1, 1867, by virtue of the laws of the State of Kansas, the name of Atchison & Pike’s Peak Railroad Company was changed to the Central Branch union Pacific Railroad Company, and the latter company completed the railroad from Atchison to Waterville.
THE ATCHISON, TOPEKA & SANTA FE RAILWAY COMPANY.

The first real move for the construction of a railroad from the Missouri river, west, resulted in a charter granted by the Territorial legislature to the 178St. Joseph & Topeka Railroad Company February 20, 1857. Under the terms of the charter the road was to start from St. Joseph, Mo.; thence crossing the river through Doniphan, Atchison and Jefferson counties to Topeka. The charter was subsequently amended and the road was extended in the direction of Santa Fe, N. M., to the southwestern line of Kansas, which is practically the same route now traversed by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad. The desire on the part of the people for direct railroad connection with the Missouri river and the East gave to this movement great impetus, and there was considerable rivalry between the towns to offer aid and assistance. The people of Atchison were particularly anxious to make this town the terminal point and the future railway center of the great trans-continental system, and strongly opposed any project which would make Atchison simply a way station on the great road to the West. With a view to avert such action on the part of those behind the movement to construct this road, it was determined to make Atchison the eastern terminus of the same. Accordingly, Atchison loaned its credit to the amount of $150,000. by aid of which subsidy a direct road was built on the Missouri side of the river from St. Joseph and thence north under another charter with Atchison, Kan., instead of St. Joseph as the eastern terminus, the enterprise was carried on and as a result the citizens of Kansas Territory were much elated with the added prestige of the railroad being a Kansas corporation. The Atchison & Topeka Railroad Company was incorporated by an Act of the legislature February 11, 1859. Those named as the original incorporators were: S. C. Pomeroy, Atchison; C. K. Halliday, Topeka; Luther C. Challiss, Atchison; Peter T. Abell, Atchison; Aspah Allen, Topeka: Milton C. Dickey, Topeka; Samuel Dickson, Atchison; Wilson L. Gordon, Topeka; George S. Hillyer, Grasshopper Falls; Lorenzo D. Bird, Atchison; Jeremiah Marshall, Topeka; George H. Fairchild, Atchison; F. L. Crane, Topeka. The company was “authorized to survey, locate, construct, complete, alter, maintain and operate a railroad with one or more tracks from or near Atchison in Kansas Territory, to the town of Topeka, in Kansas Territory, and to such point on the southern or western boundary of said Territory in the direction of Santa Fe as may be convenient and suitable for the construction of said road and also to construct a branch to any point on the southern line of said Territory in the direction of the Gulf of Mexico.” The authorized capital stock was $1,500,000, and the first meeting for organization under the charter was held at the office of Luther C. Challis in Atchison September 15, 1859, at which meeting $52,000 of the 179first subscription of stock was paid, and the following directors were chosen: L. C. Challiss, George H. Fairchild, P. T. Abell, S. C. Pomeroy, L. D. Bird, C. K. Halliday, F. L. Crane, E. G. Ross, Joel H. Huntoon, M. C. Dickey, Jacob Safford, R. H. Weightman, and J. H. Stringfellow. The officers were: C. K. Holliday, president; P. T. Abell, secretary; M. C. Dickey, treasurer. It will be seen that the majority of the incorporators and of the officers were citizens of Atchison, and it is an important fact in the history of Kansas that Atchison county played such an important part in the organization and construction of the first railroad lines in the State. Had it not been for the terrible drought of 1860, which totally paralyzed all classes of business, the work of constructing this road immediately following its organization would have gone forward, but the famine which followed the drought was so complete and so widely distributed throughout the State and the western country as to almost destroy the farming interests. During this period the directors of the road decided to press the claims of Kansas for a national subsidy for the construction of railroads, and President C. K. Holliday, with a number of his associates, spent much time in Washington during 1859 and 1860. Their work was not in vain, for on March 3, 1863, Congress made a grant of land to the State of Kansas, giving alternate sections one mile square and ten in width, amounting to 6,400 acres per mile, on condition that the Atchison-Topeka road should be finished on or before 1873. The State accepted the grant and transferred it to this road February 9, 1864. It was in October, 1868, almost ten years after the date that the first charter was granted to this road that work of construction was begun in Topeka. The road was first built in a southerly direction so as to reach the coal region in Osage county. It was opened to Carbondale, eighteen miles from Topeka, in July, 1869, and reached Wichita, 163 miles from Topeka, in May, 1872, and at about the same time in 1872 the road was completed from Topeka to Atchison, a distance of fifty-one miles.
ATCHISON & NEBRASKA CITY RAILROAD.

On May 5, 1867, the charter for the Atchison & Nebraska City Railroad Company was filed in the office of the secretary of State of the State of Kansas. The original incorporators of this road were Peter T. Abell, George W. Glick, Alfred G. Otis, John M. Price, W. W. Cochrane, Albert H. Horton, Samuel A. Kingman, J. T. Hereford and Augustus Byram, all of whom were citizens of Atchison. The charter provided for the construction of a 180railroad from “some point in the city of Atchison to some point on the north line of the State of Kansas, not farther west than twenty-five miles from th............