Jump to content

Galena and Chicago Union Railroad

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Galena & Chicago Railroad)
Galena and Chicago Union Railroad
Original plan from Chicago to Galena
Overview
Localenorthern Illinois
Dates of operation1836 (chartered); 1848 (in service)–1864
SuccessorChicago and North Western
Technical
Track gauge4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
1862 map

The Galena and Chicago Union Railroad (G&CU) was the first railroad constructed out of Chicago, intended to provide a shipping route between Chicago and the lead mines near Galena, Illinois. The railroad company was chartered on January 16, 1836,[1] but financial difficulties delayed construction until 1848.[2] While the main line never reached Galena, construction to Freeport, Illinois, allowed it to connect with the Illinois Central Railroad, thus providing an indirect route to Galena. A later route went to Clinton, Iowa.

History[edit]

Contexts[edit]

After the Erie Canal was completed in 1825, immigrants flooded into the Midwest from the East.[3] Chicago’s location, at the southwestern end of Lake Michigan with a short, easy portage to rivers flowing south and west, made it a strategic point for white settlers moving through—as it had been for Native peoples before them.[4] The white population in the region expanded exponentially, creating both markets and products that would need transportation.

One particular market that had Chicago leaders’ attention was centered in Galena, Illinois,[5] a town named for the most common form of lead sulphide.[6] Long mined by Native peoples and French explorers, substantial lead deposits in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa became known to settlers from the East in the early 1800s.[7] St. Louis had a monopoly on shipping lead from Galena down the Mississippi River by steamboat to link to markets on the East Coast. But merchants and miners in Galena wanted a quicker, more direct route to Lake Michigan.[8]

The Illinois and Michigan Canal was chartered on February 13, 1835, to provide a water route from Lake Michigan to the Illinois River and then to the Mississippi.[9] However, work on the canal didn’t officially begin until 1836, and various issues delayed construction,[10] so the canal wasn’t completed and operable until April 1848.[11] Once completed, the canal did in fact carry significant amounts of cargo, as its successor the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal still does.

But merchants in Galena thought a railroad would provide lower costs to transport goods more directly to and from Chicago, then on to the East Coast.[12] Historian Patrick E. McLear notes that boosters on the North Side of Chicago—including the railroad's future president, William Butler Ogden—also favored a railroad line coming into the city from the north, which they believed would help balance trade patterns that had so far favored areas south of the Chicago River.[13][14]

And so the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad was chartered on January 16, 1836, initially capitalized at one thousand shares of $100 each, for a total of $100,000. The first stockholders’ meeting took place on May 23, 1836, at which a board of directors was elected; on July 3, 1836, the board elected Theophilus W. Smith as president.[15]

Looming financial failure[edit]

The G&CU was one of seventeen railroads incorporated in that legislative session,[16] seven of which failed within two years.[17] New railroad companies were risky ventures, because they had to spend huge amounts on construction, rolling stock, and storage and maintenance facilities before they could even begin to make money. While communities in the Midwest wanted railroads, the population simply wasn’t great enough to fund and support railroad services.[18] Knowing this, the G&CU’s commissioners initially sought financing from investors in the East,[19] and on August 4, 1836, they increased the amount of stock for sale to $500,000, aware that building a railroad would cost much more than $100,000.[20]

However, the Panic of 1837 played havoc with fundraising of any sort. Few people had money to invest in a railroad, and several Directors of the company had to resign as they themselves were engulfed in financial problems. Though the Board did commission a survey of the route from downtown Chicago to the Des Plaines River, they could not do anything further.[21]

Things seemed about to change when Elijah K. Hubbard got involved, purchasing an overwhelming majority of G&CU stock—79 percent, in fact; he also provided $30,000 for construction costs, so the railroad had funds to work with until late 1838. However, Hubbard died in May 1839 of tuberculosis, at which point it was revealed that he had been silently representing Elihu Townsend, an Eastern financier who was a director of the New York and Erie Railroad. To show Townsend that things were moving, William B. Ogden worked with developer Walter L. Newberry to plot a general route for the railroad, and several towns along the route held public meetings to demonstrate support for continuing construction. But Townsend was not convinced, offered no further support, and did nothing with his shares.[22]

Everything came to a halt. Construction was not resumed. After their final meeting on November 22, 1837, the Directors of the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad did not meet for years.[23] The G&CU was no longer a functioning company.

William B. Ogden and new life for the G&CU[edit]

William B. Ogden led the movement to reinvigorate the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad. When the G&CU was first chartered, Ogden had been in Chicago for less than a year, overseeing his wealthy brother-in-law’s land investments north of the Chicago River.[24] He had already worked to support railroad development as a young legislator in the state of New York, taking the lead in March 1835 to argue for state support of the New York and Erie Railroad. He asked fellow legislators to help build “continuous railways from New York to Lake Erie . . . through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, to the waters of the Mississippi,” creating “the most splendid system of internal communication ever yet devised by man.” The legislation passed, and his work was seen as a resounding success.[25]

More interested in business than politics, however, two months later Ogden agreed to become the Chicago director of the American Land Company, arriving in May 1835. Although he himself was not wealthy, through his New York connections he had the trust of many rich investors. After two years in Chicago, Ogden was handling financial affairs for about a hundred Eastern investors,[26] working with, on average, around $1 million of their funds. As his clients’ profits grew, so did his own fortune.[27] He was a savvy businessperson, well liked in Chicago, and he seems to have been a natural leader. In 1837 he was elected the first Mayor of Chicago,[28] and in subsequent years he “was a leader in nearly every Chicago institution and investment enterprise in the 1840s and 1850s.”[29]

As he had been in New York, Ogden was particularly interested in building transportation networks. He invested in—and became president of—a steamboat company that operated for two years, linking Chicago with the western terminus of the Michigan Central Railroad.[30] He and a partner got the contract to dig the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which they completed a few years after the Panic of 1837 had calmed down.[31] Although both ventures strained him financially, he successfully avoided bankruptcy. It was only natural, then, that he became interested in reviving the moribund Galena and Chicago Union Railroad.

As the years had gone on with no railroad service, frustrated mine operators in Wisconsin had begun to use wagon companies to transport lead to Madison and then on to Milwaukee. Newspapers in Milwaukee documented the exponentially increasing shipments of lead, taunting Chicagoans that this trade suggested “Milwaukee is destined to be the greatest town on Lake Michigan.”[32] As time went on, more towns in northwestern Illinois demanded action, to the point where supporters from Chicago realized that they might also lose the Galena market to the Madison-Milwaukee wagon companies.[33]

Ogden and his associates began planning. In 1845, a group of businessmen from Galena, Rockford, and Chicago met in Rockford to organize a convention of interested parties from along the G&CU route; the convention began in Rockford on January 7, 1846. According to D. W. Yungmeyer, “the Chicago group was so well organized that it practically took over all the official chairs, committee heads, and about everything else, and because of its readiness with resolutions, statistics, and so on, secured the whole-hearted consent and approval of . . . everything [they] proposed.”[34] Delegates voted to create an organization that would take on the task of resurrecting the Galena and Chicago Union, appointing a committee which included eight Chicago representatives.[35]

William Ogden did not attend because he was in New York meeting with Elihu Townsend.[36] With Ogden’s eastern connections and his support of the New York and Erie Railroad—of which Townsend was a director—Ogden was in a good position to negotiate with Townsend. According to the original 1836 charter, if the G&CU company did not build a railroad within ten years, it would be disbanded as a corporation, and Townsend would lose everything he had invested. An amendment to the charter in 1837 had extended the construction deadline by five years,[37] so they were still within the 15-year construction period, but it wasn’t clear that Townsend planned to do anything on his own. If he were to let the new, still unofficial, group take over, Townsend could expect a profit if they were successful. Ogden was thus able to purchase corporate control of the G&CU from Townsend in exchange for further stock in what would essentially be a new company taking on the mantle of the first charter.[38]

When Ogden returned from New York with control of the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad Company, the new board of directors elected him as company president, on February 17, 1846.[39] A year later, on February 24, 1847, the Illinois legislature amended the railroad’s charter to fit the new circumstances, setting the company’s capital at $3 million.[40][41] The Galena and Chicago Union was back in business.

Construction[edit]

The railroad was constructed starting in March 1848, and was completed to Freeport in 1853. The first westbound train out of Chicago departed on October 25, 1848, pulled by a used Baldwin-built locomotive named Pioneer.[42][43] When construction reached the Fox River at Elgin in 1850 passengers going farther west could transfer to the stagecoach lines. The railroad extended to Rockford by 1851 and ended construction at Freeport in 1853. The Illinois Central Railroad, using the G&CU construction crew, completed the Freeport to Galena route in 1854 following the stage route already established by Frink, Walker and Company.

"The Pioneer," the first locomotive on the road, arrived at Chicago on October 10, 1848, nearly thirteen years after the charter was granted. In 1850, the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad was completed as far as Elgin. The railroad and the Illinois and Michigan Canal were vital in the development of Chicago, and the population of the city tripled in the six years after the opening of the canal. Eventually other railroads were built and Chicago became the largest railroad center in the world.

In 1862 the G&CU leased in perpetuity the Chicago Iowa & Nebraska and the Cedar Rapids and Missouri Railroad building westward from Clinton and Cedar Rapids in Iowa and including a bridge and ferry across the Mississippi river.[44] [45]This was to be the first railroad to reach Council Bluffs, Iowa and connect with the First transcontinental railroad which was being constructed westward by the Union Pacific Railroad in Omaha, Nebraska. The 1862 map by G. Woolworth Colton shown here lays out the various lines in operation at that time.[46] The G&CU and its leased Iowa roads consolidated with the Chicago and North Western Railway in 1864. This new consolidated railroad completed a connection without transfer from Chicago to Council Bluffs and Omaha in early 1867.[47] [48] The C&NW merged with the Union Pacific Railroad over a century later in 1996.

Today, the G&CU's main line between Chicago and West Chicago is a busy commuter service, jointly operated by Union Pacific and Metra as the Union Pacific / West Line. The remainder of the line from West Chicago to Rockford is still in service carrying only freight (though Amtrak service to Rockford has been proposed and planned) with local industrial spurs in Rockford and Loves Park. The route between Rockford and Freeport is abandoned, and is being converted into a rail trail.

Depots[edit]

Stations between Chicago and Freeport included the following:

From West Chicago to Clinton:

Crystal Lake Branch

Aurora Branch

St. Charles Branch

References[edit]

  1. ^ An Act to Incorporate the Galena and Chicago Union Rail Road Company, January 16, 1836. In Laws of the State of Illinois, Ninth General Assembly, Second Session, 1835-1836. Pp. 24-30. Internet Archive
  2. ^ McLear, Patrick E. "The Galena and Chicago Union Railroad: A Symbol of Chicago's Economic Maturity," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Vol. 73, No. 1 (Spring 1980), pp. 17-26. P. 24. Stable URL.
  3. ^ "Erie Canal Completion." The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 10, 1825. P. 1.
  4. ^ Solzman, David M. "Portage". "Encyclopedia of Chicago". Ed. Janice L. Reiff, Ann Durkin Keating, and James R. Grossman. Chicago History Museum, The Newberry Library, and Northwestern University, 2005. Accessed 24 May 2024.
  5. ^ McLear, "Galena and Chicago Union," p. 17.
  6. ^ ”Galena History.” The City of Galena, Illinois, https://www.cityofgalena.org/our-community/galena-history.
  7. ^ Walthall, John A., “Galena and Aboriginal Trade in Eastern North America,” Illinois State Museum, Scientific Papers, Vol. XVII. Internet Archive P. 25.
  8. ^ McLear, “Galena and Chicago Union,” p. 17.
  9. ^ An Act for the Construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, February 10, 1835. In Laws of the State of Illinois, 9th General Assembly, First Session. Pp. 222-229.
  10. ^ Putnam, James William. The Illinois and Michigan Canal: A Study in Economic History, The University of Chicago Press, 1918. Pp. 37-38.
  11. ^ Putnam, p.62.
  12. ^ McLear, “Galena and Chicago Union,” p. 19.
  13. ^ McLear, “Galena and Chicago Union,” p. 17.
  14. ^ McLear, Patrick E. “William Butler Ogden: A Chicago Promoter in the Speculative Era and the Panic of 1837,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Vol. 70, No. 4 (Nov. 1977), pp. 283-291. P. 284 Stable URL.
  15. ^ Yungmeyer, D. W. “Selected Items From the Minute Book of the Galena and Chicago Railroad Company With a Foreword and Comment,” The Railway and Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin, October 1944, No. 65. P. 29. Stable URL
  16. ^ ”Incorporations” in Index to Laws of the State of Illinois, Ninth General Assembly, Second Session, 1835-1836. pp. 291-292.
  17. ^ Harpster, Jack. “The First Train Out of Chicago.” Railroad History, Spring-Summer 2013, No. 208, pp. 83-93. P. 88. [Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43524689].
  18. ^ Overton, Richard C. Burlington Route: A History of the Burlington Lines. Knopf, 1965. Pp. 4-5. Internet Archive.
  19. ^ McLear, “Galena and Chicago Union,” p. 18.
  20. ^ Yungmeyer, p. 29.
  21. ^ McLear, “Galena and Chicago Union,” p. 18.
  22. ^ McLear, “Galena and Chicago Union,” pp. 18-19.
  23. ^ Yungmeyer, p. 30.
  24. ^ McLear, “William Butler Ogden,” p. 284.
  25. ^ Quoted in Downard, William L. “William Butler Ogden and the Growth of Chicago,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Spring 1982), pp. 47-60. P. 50. Stable URL.
  26. ^ McLear, “William Butler Ogden,” p. 284.
  27. ^ Downard, p. 51.
  28. ^ Downard, p. 51.
  29. ^ Downard, p. 53.
  30. ^ McLear, “William Butler Ogden,” p. 286.
  31. ^ McLear, “William Butler Ogden,” p. 287.
  32. ^ Milwaukee Sentinal, July 6, 1841, quoted in McLear, “Galena and Chicago Union,” p. 20.
  33. ^ McLear, “Galena and Chicago Union,” p. 21.
  34. ^ Yungmeyer, p. 31.
  35. ^ McLear, "Galena and Chicago Union," p. 21.
  36. ^ McLear, “Galena and Chicago Union,” p. 21.
  37. ^ An Act to Amend an Act Entitled “An Act to Incorporate the Galena and Chicago Union Rail-road Company,” Approved January 16, 1836. From Incorporation Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed at a Session of the General Assembly [First Session of the Tenth General Assembly], William Walters, 1837, p. 291. The Papers of Abraham Lincoln Digital Library.
  38. ^ Harpster, p. 88. Harpster portrays Ogden as pouncing on the chance to reorganize once the original ten-year period had expired; however, with the five-year extension in place, the booster group still had to negotiate with Townsend.
  39. ^ Downard, p. 54.
  40. ^ Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Company, Yesterday and Today: A History of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Company, 3rd ed. Winship Co., 1910. P. 10. Internet Archive.
  41. ^ Harpster, p. 88.
  42. ^ Rivanna Chapter, National Railway Historical Society (2005), This Month in Railroad History - October. Retrieved October 25, 2005.
  43. ^ Chicago Historical Society, History Lab Collections - Riding the Rails Archived 2006-05-27 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved October 25, 2005.
  44. ^ Annual Report of the Directors of the Galena and Chicago Union Rail Road Co. To the Stockholders for the Fiscal Year Ending December 31. Dunlop, Sewell & Spalding. 1861.
  45. ^ Annual Report of the Directors of the Galena and Chicago Union Rail Road Co. To the Stockholders for the Fiscal Year Ending December 31. Dunlop, Sewell & Spalding. 1862.
  46. ^ "Map Showing the Location of the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad with its Branches & Connections in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. Engraved & Printed by G. Woolworth Colton, No. 18 Beekman St., N.Y." 1862. Described in Robert A. Holland (2005) Chicago in Maps 1612 to 2002.. New York: Rizzoli International Publications. pp. 74–75. ISBN 0-8478-2743-7 Original map is located in the Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
  47. ^ "Clinton County Iowa Genealogy".
  48. ^ "Iowa Rail History - Office of Rail Transportation".

Sources[edit]

  • Cronon, William (1992). Nature's metropolis: Chicago and the great west (reprint ed.). W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-30873-1. examines the economic effects of the railroad (among other things).
  • An Act to Incorporate the Galena and Chicago Union Rail Road Company, January 16, 1836. In Laws of the State of Illinois Passed by the Ninth General Assembly, at Their Second Session, Commencing December 7, 1835, and ending January 18, 1836, J. Y. Sawyer, Public Printer, 1836. Pp. 24-30. Internet Archive.
  • Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Company, Yesterday and Today: A History of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Company, 3rd ed. Winship Co., 1910. Internet Archive.
  • A Chronological History of Chicago: 1673- Compiled by Chicago Municipal Reference Library, City of Chicago, updated by Municipal Reference Collection, Chicago Public Library.
  • Downard, William L. “William Butler Ogden and the Growth of Chicago,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Spring 1982), pp. 47-60. Stable URL.
  • McLear, Patrick E. "The Galena and Chicago Union Railroad: A Symbol of Chicago's Economic Maturity," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Vol. 73, No. 1 (Spring 1980), pp. 17-26. Stable URL.
  • McLear, Patrick E. “William Butler Ogden: A Chicago Promoter in the Speculative Era and the Panic of 1837,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Vol. 70, No. 4 (Nov. 1977), pp. 283-291. Stable URL.
  • The Northern Counties Gazetteer and Directory for 1855–6: A Complete and Perfect Guide to Northern Illinois Containing a Concise Description of the Cities, Towns & Principal Villages... (1855). 189 Lake Street, Chicago. Reprinted on demand by Pranava Books, India. August 2019.
  • Yungmeyer, D. W. “Selected Items From the Minute Book of the Galena and Chicago Railroad Company With a Foreword and Comment,” The Railway and Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin, October 1944, No. 65. Pp. 27-42. Stable URL
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Galena_and_Chicago_Union_Railroad&oldid=1231534372"