DIY History | Transcribe | Building the Transcontinental Railroad | Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad correspondence regarding connection with the Union Pacific Railroad, 1864-1865

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Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad correspondence regarding connection with the Union Pacific Railroad, 1864-1865

Page 02

as near as possible in harmony with the interests & necessities of both road companies, would be impelled to recognize Des Moines at one end, & Omaha at the other, as a legal necessity, which would admit of no compromise, & could not come thirty miles north on to our line, & go thirty miles back again to reach Omaha, even if by doing so, the road should cost a million of dollars less, & they could thereby obtain half a million acres of land. The result then would be, or might be, that it would cost our co. more money to construct our road to a connection with the Trunk line, & pay one half of the cost of that, to Omaha, than the whole of our own line will cost to the North Bend of the Platt, forty miles from Omaha. About 150 miles of new road, on a line that nature has marked out & made remarkable for cheap & economical construction, will complete our line to the North Bend of the Platt with a subsidy of a full compliment of lands all the way. These advantages of lands, of cheapness in construction, & saving in the length of line of road to build, & still more in the distance to be run when completed, should not & cannot be [illegible]

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as near as possible in harmony with the interests & necessities of both road companies, would be impelled to recognize Des Moines at one end, & Omaha at the other, as a legal necessity, which would admit of no compromise, & could not come thirty miles north on to our line, & go thirty miles back again to reach Omaha, even if by doing so, the road should cost a million of dollars less, & they could thereby obtain half a million acres of land. The result then would be, or might be, that it would cost our co. more money to construct our road to a connection with the Trunk line, & pay one half of the cost of that, to Omaha, than the whole of our own line will cost to the North Bend of the Platt, forty miles from Omaha. About 150 miles of new road, on a line that nature has marked out & made remarkable for cheap & economical construction, will complete our line to the North Bend of the Platt with a subsidy of a full compliment of lands all the way. These advantages of lands, of cheapness in construction, & saving in the length of line of road to build, & still more in the distance to be run when completed, should not & cannot be [illegible]