The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad | Page 3

Whitman party leaving the East for the far northwest to
establish a Mission Station was the Rev. Samuel Parker, a Presbyterian
minister, who was sent under the auspices of the Missionary Board of
his Church to investigate and report on the mission situation and to
suggest a plan for Christianizing the Indians. He crossed the continent

to Oregon and on his return in 1838, his journal was published. It
presented a very correct and interesting account of the scenes he visited.
In it he says, "There would be no difficulty in the way of constructing a
railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean * * * * and the time may
not be so far distant when trips will be made across the continent as
they are now to Niagara Falls to see Nature's wonders."
To just whom belongs the credit of being the first to advocate a railroad
to the Pacific Coast is in dispute. No doubt the idea occurred to many at
the time they were being introduced and successfully operated in the
East. The two items referred to seem to be the first record of the idea or
possibility.
About the same time, although the date is not positively fixed, Dr.
Samuel Bancroft Barlow, a practising physician of Greenville, Mass.,
commenced writing articles for the newspapers, advocating a Pacific
railroad and outlining a plan for its construction.
His proposition contemplated a railroad from New York City to the
mouth of the Columbia River. As illustrating the lack of knowledge
regarding the cost and operations of railroads, we quote from his
writings "Premising the length of the road would be three thousand
miles and the average cost ten thousand dollars per mile, we have thirty
million dollars as the total cost, and were the United States to engage in
its construction, three years time would be amply sufficient * * * * At
the very moderate rate of ten miles an hour, a man could go from New
York to the mouth of the Columbia River in twelve days and a half."
Another enthusiast was Hartwell Carver, grandson of Jonathan Carver
the explorer of 1766. His proposition was to build a railroad from Lake
Michigan (Chicago) to the South Pass, with two branches from there,
one to the mouth of the Columbia River, and the other due west to
California. South Pass received its name from being South of the pass
in general use. Strange to say his "true Pacific Route" formulated
without knowledge of the lay of the land was absolutely the best and
the one that today is followed by the Union Pacific Railway and
affiliated lines, substituting Granger for South Pass. Carver's
proposition was to build the line by a private corporation who were to

receive a grant of land for their right of way, the whole distance, with
the privilege of taking from the public lands, material used in
construction, with the further privilege of purchasing from the United
States Government, eight million acres of selected lands from the
public domains at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, payable in
the stock of the Company. His road was to be laid on stone foundations
and to be equipped with sleeping cars, dining cars and salon cars. His
ideas as to the cost of the work were far too low, but outside of this he
was seemingly inspired. At the time he was writing, 1835, there were
seven hundred and ninety-seven miles of railroads in operation in the
United States. Passenger coaches were patterned after the old stage
coach, the track iron straps on wooden stringers, yet here he was
outlining what today is an accomplished fact. A railroad with stone
ballast from Chicago to the South Pass (Granger, Wyo.) one branch
diverging from there to the mouth of the Columbia, (Portland, Ore.,)
the other to California, (San Francisco and Los Angeles, Cal.,)
traversed by trains comprised of sleeping cars, dining cars and buffet
cars. The Union Pacific and its connections.
Carver spent the best years of his life and what was in those days an
ample fortune in endeavoring to further his project. The great
opposition to his plan arose from the proposed diversion of the public
lands and the stock feature, neither Congress nor the public taking
kindly to the idea of the Government giving lands for stock in a private
corporation.
A third proposition was fathered by John Plumbe of Dubuque, Iowa,
who suggested at a public meeting, held at his home town in March
1838, that a railroad be built from the great lakes to the Columbia River.
His plan contemplated an appropriation from Congress of alternate
sections of the public lands on either side of the right of way. The
company to be capitalized at one hundred million dollars, twenty