OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Ohio's Early Railroads (Part 2)
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Darlene E. Kelley
http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374
September 26, 2001
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Historical Collections of Ohio
The Kelley Family Collections
Newspaper article, Plains Dealer
compiled by S.J. Kelley-- 1925
And Then They Went West
by Darlene E. Kelley  1998
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Ohio's Railroads -- Part 2

The decade opened upon an era of great economic prosperity, which was
fostered by the influenece of the Mexican War and territorial expansion.
Long wagon trains were threading their way over mountains and plain to
the far west, seeking homesteads and California gold. Arriving in Ohio
on their westward way, many of them who came overland or by waterway
chose to stay, believing that the florishing state offered immediate
opportunity.

Agriculture, the stagecoach, and the Ohio Canal had given many villages
a healthy start. and for several decades their future was more
promising. In the race of pre-eminence, Clevelands strategic position on
lake and canal had given it the lead in the Western Reserve with
population, with the growth almost thiirty times the 1820 census.

Railroad building had been paramount in the news since 1849. After about
fifteen years of desperate struggle on the part of promoters, rails of
iron joined Columbus and Cincinnati with Cleveland making the later the
terminus of several great systems. By 1851, the wood-fired, brass
trimmed Cleveland locomotive, built in Ohio City. made her initial run
from Columbus into the little wood frame depot on Superior Street hill,
representing a victory over public antagonism, financial misfortune, and
extreme construction difficulties.

By 1852, three sturdy little trains called the " Beebe Line " were
operating daily each way on the 4 foot 10 inch gauge road between Lake
Erie and the Ohio River. Industry had made a great forward stride; the
Cuyahoga Steam Furnace Company in Ohio City was building locomotives,
and Otis and Ford were producing forgings and axels.

In this year, Alfred Kelley, retired as President of the Cleveland,
Columbus & Cinncinnai Railroad and was succeeded by Henry B. Payne. Ohio
and Indiana roads that were enduring financial struggles, survived
through Kelley's and Payne's aid of money and credit. While their
policies was criticized, the revitalized lines encouraged communities
and increased land values. Eventually, some of them came into their
benfactor's fold.

While builders of the Cleveland & Pittsburgh railroad were not aware of
the possibilities of trade in iron ore, they estimated that the line
would move about a thousand tons of coal a day, a figure that soon was
surpassed. In the early fifties. word went out that a trainload of coal
was to be hauled into Cleveland. Four or five hundred people traveled
out to the railroad shop ( at East 38th and Hamilton ) where they joined
the few company employees in cheering the first coal train-- ten flat
cars loaded with one hundred tons. The next morning, the newspapers
predicted that Cleveland was destined to become the "boomtown" of
America.

The Pennsylvania and Baltimore & Ohio railroads had reached the Ohio
River in 1853. Ten small roads between Albany and Buffalo were
consolidated the same year into the New York Central Railroad,
capitalized at the staggering sum of twenty-three million dollars. Rails
thus welded the east and west. 

Vague charters permitted building only to state lines, making necessary
the granting of charters in various states in order to make interstate
connections. Believing that the monster belching smoke and sparks would
run their lands, farmers and property owners placed obstructions on the
tracks to hinder operations. Hauled into court, railroad companies found
no sympathy at first in the juries.

The railroads were binding waterways and valleys of the North together.
Along the lakeshore, little lines were being united in the late fifties,
but safe " through " service was retarded by the narrow guage policy in
Ohio, as against standard guage in Indiana and New York. Changing cars
was burdensome for travelers and unpopular. It was difficult to maintain
schedules, particularly in bad weather. Cars often jumped the tracks,
and trains were delayed by stray animals, fallen trees, and
obstructions. Night traveling was hazardous, and accidents due to
washouts and threats that lurked in the darkness often brought disaster
before hand brakes could be applied. As the roads slowly ironed out
their problems. competition grew and petty rate wars broke out,
increasing in volume until they threatened to destroy some of the roads.

Despite many hardships, the railroad developed rapidly, stimulating
manufacturing and revolutionizing transportation and communication. Days
of romantic stagecoach travel were numbered. The blast of the driver's
horn that woke the early wilderness was replaced by the discordant
whistle of the furnace-feeding engineer. As the trails of commerce
shifted and the move to the cities increased, stage towns on state roads
and turnpikes began to decay, taverns suffered, and weary stagecoaches
were consigned to obscure mail routes between railroad towns and distant
villages. Stages continued to operate regularly for some time between
Cleveland and near-by points.

It took men to build the railraods. If financing them brought problems
to their promoters, their actual contruction brought accidents, disease
and sometimes death to their builders. few of the early lines were
completed without interruption. What little machinery they had was
primative. Most of the jobs were done by muscles and hands of men. The
rails -- the first were iron straps laid on timbers-- in many cases had
to be shipped from England, and delays in delivery dragged out schedules
by months and sometimes years. These men were tough and braved out many
long days and weeks of hardship as they traveled to lay these rails.
Most without families and some with families who followed to be close.
Washer women and cooks followed the men, oft time without any revenue,
only to be close to their husbands as they prodded on, laying these long
tedious rails.

The intensity, the bitterness with which neighbor communities competed,
each to bring the railroad through its area, is hard to visualize. As
the fever of railroad building swept over Ohio, each community felt like
it was fighting for its life. As the railroads built their way, it
brought jobs, business and prosperity. If the railroad passed them by,
so did progress.

Large acreage was bought, surveyed, and graded a right of way by
business men and bankers, many offering the strip as a gift to the
railroads to bring prosperity to their communities. Securities were
sold, to gain capitol to induce the building through their towns. The
fever had reach Ohio, with the snorting iron horse. who brought arts,
refinements, and the circus of P.T. Barnum, who traveled much over the
state in the cars.

Although the Federal Government encouraged the develpment of the
railroads, they did not make grants to Ohio like they did with the
canals. Ohio built its railroads without help from Washington.
Financing was not easy. Sources of capital, tended to fall into a
general pattern, 1/3 of the investment was raised in the East by sale of
bonds. about 1/6 came from municipal funds, 1/5 was put up by the
promoters themselves, and the balance came in the way of loans and
investments. Stocks were sold. Many lived to collect on them but others
did not, as they financed their way into a industrialized Ohio. The land
they made into one of the fastest growing States in the Union.

The Railroads of Ohio---

Akron, Canton & Youngstown -- " The Road of Service "

Baltimore & Ohio -- " Linking 13 Great States With the Nation "

Bessemer & Lake Erie -- " The Bessemer Route "

Chesapeake & Ohio -- " C&O For Progress"

Detroit, Toledo & Ironton -- " DT&I"

Erie

New York Central System --

Nickle Plate -- " Nickle Plate Road "

Norfolk & Western -- " N&W Railway "

Pennsylvania 

Pittsburg & Lake Erie -- " Pittsburg & Lake Erie Railroad "

Pittsburg & West Virginia -- " Pittsburg & West Virginia Railway "

Southern Railway System -- " The Southern Serves The South "

Wabash -- " Follow The Flag "

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