In the decade before the Civil War various north and south lines of railway were projected and some of these were assisted by grants of land from the Federal Government

The close relationship between railroad expansion and the genera development and prosperity of the country is nowhere brought more distinctly into relief than in connection with the construction of the Pacific railroads.

Great men are usually the products of their times and one of the men developed by these times takes rank with the greatest railroad leaders in history.

The States which form the northern border of the United States westward from the Great Lakes to the Pacific coast include an area several times larger than France and could contain ten Englands and still have room to spare.

Consequently many large railroad systems of heavy capitalization bid fair to run into difficulties on the first serious falling off in general business

When the scheme for the construction of a railroad from Baltimore to the waters of the Ohio River first began to take form, the United States had barely emerged from the Revolutionary period

People began to understand that with the acquisition of California the nation had obtained practically half a continent, of which the future possibilities were almost unlimited, so far as the development of natural resources and the genera production of wealth were concerned.