The Story of the Railroad |
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agent army asked Atchison began boss buffalo building built camp Canadian Pacific Cañon City cents chief engineer Colonel Colorado Colorado Midland conductor Congress construction court crossed Denver and Rio desert Dodge East Fargo and Company feet freight gineers Gorge Government grade half hills horse hundred miles Indians interest Jay Cooke Kansas Pacific labourers Lake Lake Superior land locomotive Mennonites Mexican Mexico million dollars Missouri River Morley nearly night Northern Pacific Northern Pacific Railroad Omaha outfit Pacific Ocean Pacific Railroad Pacific roads pany passed pathfinder plains President Pueblo Railroad Company rails Raton Pass reached rifle Rio Grande Robinson Rocky Mountains route Royal Gorge Santa Fé scouts Sherman side Sioux station story surveys territory thousand dollars tion took Topeka Topeka and Santa track train transcontinental transcontinental railroad Union Pacific vast West wild
Popular passages
Page 74 - TELL me not, sweet, I am unkind, — That from the nunnery Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind To war and arms I fly. True, a new mistress now I chase, The first foe in the field ; And with a stronger faith embrace A sword, a horse, a shield. Yet this inconstancy is such As you, too, shall adore ; I could not love thee, dear, so much. Loved I not honour more.
Page 270 - Every neck is stretched farther, and every eye strained wider. Away across the endless dead level of the prairie a black speck appears against the sky, and it is plain that it moves. Well, I should think so! In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider, rising and falling, rising and falling — sweeping toward us nearer and nearer — growing more and more distinct, more and more sharply defined — nearer and still nearer, and the flutter of the hoofs comes faintly to the ear — another instant...
Page vi - Gates; how at each stage of the construction, roaring, impromptu cities, full of gold and lust and death, sprang up and then died away again, and are now but wayside stations in the desert; how in these uncouth places pig-tailed Chinese pirates worked side by side with border ruffians and broken men from Europe, talking together in a mixed dialect, mostly oaths, gambling, drinking...
Page vi - America heard, in this last fastness, the scream of the "bad medicine wagon," charioting his foes; and then when I go on to remember that all this epical turmoil was conducted by gentlemen in frock coats, and with a view to nothing more extraordinary than a fortune and a subsequent visit to Paris ; it seems to me, I own, as if this railway were the one typical achievement of the age in which we live, as if it brought together into one plot all the ends of the world and all the degrees of social rank,...
Page 57 - It is not too much to say that the opening of the Pacific road, viewed simply in its relation to the spread of population, development of resources, and actual advance of civilization, was an event to be ranked in far-reaching results with the landing of the Pilgrims, or perhaps the voyage of Columbus.
Page 63 - I need not say, will have different facilities from that of 1846, when the only way to California was by sail around Cape Horn, taking our ships 196 days. All honor to you, to Durant, to Jack and Dan Casement, to Reed and the thousands of brave fellows who have wrought out this glorious problem, spite of changes, storms, and even doubts of the incredulous...