Coles County IL Archives History - Books .....Railroads Of The County 1879
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Book Title: History Of Coles County

RAILROADS OF THE COUNTY.

   To obtain an accurate idea of the railroads of Coles County, one must go back
before the day of railroads and note briefly their causes.

   The first railways in the world began in the collieries in England, and were
simple tramways-wooden rails-on which the cars were hauled by mules. As in many
places the way from the collieries to the coal-yards was up an inclined plane,
the cars were hauled by the mules up the plane, and allowed to return by their
own gravity. "By little and by little," as Charles Dickens would say, the tracks
were extended to the shipping points, and, finally, to the chief markets. Then
the laborers began to ride to and from their daily tasks; then others rode; then
a car made to carry only laborers and those desiring to ride was placed on the
track; steam began now and then to be recognized as an important factor among
the immense motive powers of the world, and, about 1825, George Stephenson
invented and placed in successful operation an engine that drew a train of cars
over a wooden railway, protected by an iron covering, at the rate of twelve
miles an hour. This road ran from one town to another, over vale and hill,
up-hill and down, astonishing the incredulous English, who prophesied only dire
disaster and distress would attend the operating of such a monster. Soon the
railways, operated by steam, and carrying a train of cars that "annihilated both
time and space," were coming rapidly into use in the mother country. The
American nation, not to be outdone, had caught the contagion, and, in 1830, the
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad commenced active operations to open a similar line,
extending westward from that city. In 1826, a tramway was built from Quincy,
Mass., the home of the Adams family, to the granite quarries, a few miles
away-the pioneer railroad in America. On this primitive affair only mules or
horses were used, and it was never put to any other purpose than the hauling of
granite from the quarries.

   From 1830 to 1835, railroads in the East received a considerable impulse.
Improvements of all kinds were being made, a speed of twenty and thirty miles an
hour was attained, and the benefits of their construction and use were becoming
more apparent.

   About this time, it began to occur to the denizens of the Prairie State that
their domain was the best place in all the world for such enterprises. "For,"
argued they, "have we not a rich, productive soil, an even country, requiring
but little preparation, and needing no expensive grading, filling or costly
bridges. Does not our land bring forth plenty, and, if we had proper means for
transporting our products away and bringing money and settlers back to us. what
a country we would be!"

   A desire always finds a favorable argument and some way to accomplish its ends.

   True, there was no money to build such works, and Pennsylvania and other
Eastern States which had entered on such schemes had invariably been the losers;
for "rings" would form and steal what they could not get honestly. Yet Illinois
soon found a way, and the attempt was made. In his message to the General
Assembly, at the session of 1835, Gov. Joseph Duncan urged the Legislature, now
ripe for action, to the furtherance of schemes that were so brilliant in their
prospects. That body responded by such subsidies and grants to internal
improvements as to astonish even the sanguine Governor himself. Before they
stopped, so infatuated were they with the glorious future so enchantingly spread
out before them, they had entailed a debt of more than $14,000,000, all
confidently expected to be paid by the improvements themselves and by the
consequent increase in property.

   The utopian scheme dazzled the eyes of the Governor, the Legislature and the
people. They saw nothing but the most prosperous times ahead, and began at once
a system of financiering that in the end well nigh impoverished the State. Gold
and silver, the money of the world from its infancy, could, of course, not be
had for the fulfillment of the plans, and a system of bonds was instituted,
based on the faith of the State, redeemable in a series of years, and payable in
coin in the banks in New York. It was confidently predicted that the bonds would
not only sell at par, but would command a premium. They were to be paid from the
proceeds of the canal and railroads, and were advertised as the best securities
to be had. The first installment went oft' easily; but human greed began to
exhibit itself, and "rings" were formed, and, before anyone was aware, the bonds
of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio-for these States were in the meshes of the same
visionary scheme-began to decline. When work began on the Illinois and Michigan
Canal, on the Illinois Central Railroad and a few other such enterprises,
laborers flocked to the State, prices of everything advanced, and the day of
prosperity so confidently predicted in the early stages of the "plan," seemed
now at hand. The men of the day, blinded by the apparent success of the scheme,
like men of this day, seemed to overlook the fact that every article of trade,
whether food, labor or merchandise, advanced with the influx of currency issued
by the State banks, brought into life by the scheme, and that in this respect
things were no cheaper than before. Now, at first $1 would buy but little less
than before. Soon it took $2 to buy what $1 would before, and so on, till, when
the system collapsed, $100 of State money would buy only as much as $16 in gold.

   The projected works were simply marvelous in extent. Almost every county in
Illinois was to have a railroad, and in those where none were projected,
$200,000 was to be distributed. Work was to begin at both ends of the railroads
and the canal, and in any other places where heavy grades were encountered.
Among the projected routes was one from Cairo to the northern limit of the
State, especially to meet the southern end of the canal, this was to run through
or near Coles County. Another was projected from Terre Haute, Ind., westward to
Alton, Ill. It was stipulated by the "Alton interest," as that faction was known
in the Senate, that no road should terminate at St. Louis. That city was a rival
to Alton, which confidently expected to overtake and pass her opulent neighbor,
and, in time, completely overshadow her. Hence, no favors were to be shown the
foreign rival. She must be put down some way, and that way could be aided by
refusing all means of ingress and egress, save through Alton. For this reason,
the road from Terre Haute westward, must stop at Alton, and all business coming
from the East must center there. That the railroad was to be built no one for a
moment doubted. It was to be known as the Terre Haute & Alton Railroad, and
contracts for its construction were let early in the life of the Internal
Improvement system. Work began at both ends and progressed center ward. Grading
and filling was done at each extremity, the route determined on, and for a short
time progressed favorably. As the bonds of the State declined in value, and its
currency fell in a like ratio, the demands of the laborer, unskilled in finance,
and caring only for their pay, became more and more exorbitant, and when the
failure of the system came, they abruptly abandoned the State, with all manner
of maledictions cast upon it. The work on the railroad did not reach Coles
County. That on the Illinois Central suffered a similar fate, and no signs of
railroads appeared here, save in the surveyor's lines and stakes, and in the
losses some of its people suffered from the collapse, and return to a specie basis.

   The hard times that followed have almost an unequaled history. The decline in
fictitious values, the distress of many people who had caught the contagion of
suddenly growing rich without giving an equivalent for the prosperity, the fall
of real estate, the high price of produce, and, more than all, the dread of
emigrants, who feared to link their lives with a commonwealth whose taxes for
the future seemed unbearable, gave the State a reputation anything but agreeable.

   It was young, however, full of resources, and confident in its powers. Able
men took the helm; a series of redeemable, long-time bonds was issued, the
canal, through additional loans, was completed; and by the time the Mexican war
began to agitate the minds of the American people the bonds of Illinois had
risen, first to forty, then fifty, then seventy, and now to ninety cents on the
dollar. To its everlasting credit it must be recorded, all were paid; and to-day
the debt of the State is only a nominal sum, which could be paid at any time.
Whatever may be said of the system of Internal Improvements, it must be recorded
that the people learned a lesson, dearly, too, that it does not pay
municipalities to assume the construction of such works, and that it is always
disastrous to entail a debt in expectation of future greatness and ability to
discharge it. Where such a course succeeds once, it will fail a hundred times;
and even if succeeding, it is only by unnatural methods.

   The reverse of the system was so great that no attempts were made to complete
any of the unfinished roads for over twelve years. Of all the grand system of
internal railroads in Illinois, but one, the Northern Cross Railroad, was the
only one that reached practical results. Of that, in the spring of 1837, some
eight miles were built, and, on November 8, the first locomotive that ever
turned a wheel in the Mississippi Valley was placed and made a trial-trip,
running out and back on the eight miles of the old flat bar track. The road was
finished on to Jacksonville, and, in the spring of 1842, to Springfield, where
it terminated. The little locomotive, minus a spark-arrester and cow-catcher,
was a terror to cattle and buildings, throwing the one ruthlessly from the
track, and burning the other with its sparks. It was, after running a year or
so, run off the track by a drunken engineer, and sold to Gen. Semples, of Alton,
who nearly bankrupted himself in a fruitless endeavor to make a steam road-wagon
of it. Mule-power superseded the engine on this road until about 1847, when the
track was sold (being worn out, and the strap rails stolen for sled shoes by the
surrounding populace) to a company of capitalists, for $100,000, one-tenth of
its cost, and by them remodeled, equipped, completed and the beginning of the
present Wabash Railway was the result.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

THE HISTORY OF COLES COUNTY. ILLINOIS,

CONTAINING

A History of the County—its Cities, Towns, &c; a Directory of its Tax-Payers;
Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men; General and Local Statistics; Map
of Coles County; History of Illinois, Illustrated; History of the Northwest,
Illustrated; Constitution of the United States, Miscellaneous Matters, &c, &c.

ILLUSTRATED

CHICAGO:
WM. LE BARON, JR., & CO., 186 DEARBORN STREET.
1879.

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