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The
Hannibal & St. Joseph railroad, the first to cross Missouri,
started at Hannibal in the office of John H. Clemens, father of
Mark Twain. This meeting was held at Hannibal in the spring of
1846. Z. G. Draper was chosen president, and R. F. Lakenan,
secretary. At the next session of the legislature, in 1847, the
charter was obtained. Then followed enthusiastic meetings and
conventions all along the proposed route. And then the movement
slumbered until 1850. In 1851 the legislature began the voting of
bonds on condition that the company raise and expend corresponding
amounts. The counties and the towns voted bonds. That was the
method of railroad financing in Missouri before the war. In the
fall of 1851 ground was broken at Hannibal with a great
procession, much oratory and bell ringing and cannon firing. The
next year Congress voted 6oo,ooo acres of good land in aid of the
road. Contracts were let but construction dragged. It was not
until February 13, 1859, that the first through train ran. The
rate was five cents a mile and some times more for passengers. The
road was known in Missouri as "Old Reliable." The
Hannibal & St. Joe was started from both ends. It was
completed in Munipower's field two miles east of Chillicothe at
seven o'clock in the morning of February 13.The junction of the
two ends was celebrated by the transportation of several barrels
of water from the Mississippi at Hannibal to St. Joseph where the
barrels were emptied into the Missouri. This, as the orator said,
typified the union of the two great water courses of the American
continent.
The
original idea of the Wabash was a railroad from St. Louis and St,
Charles northwesterly along the dividing line between the
Mississippi and the Missouri river valleys to the Iowa line and
thence to Des Moines. The name was the North Missouri. This road
was chartered in 1851 and reached Macon in 1859. Not until 1864
did the North Missouri take over the two shorter roads, the
Chariton and the Missouri Valley and build through to Kansas City.
When
Paramore built 700 miles of three-foot gauge road through Missouri
and Arkansas and into Texas with only $i2,ooo a mile bonded debt,
it seemed as if standard roads with larger indebtedness could not
compete. There was much sentiment in St. Louis favorable to the
narrow gauge idea. But it died out and the narrow gauge became
standard. Samuel W. Fordyce, first receiver and then reorganizer
of the Cotton Belt, as the road was called, worked out the
railroad problem demonstrating that a standard gauge was best.
Source:
Centennial History of Missouri |
