Wednesday, June 8, 2016

May 1899: East of Rock Springs

Once upon a time a long time ago
when America was young and the frontier was still untamed by the automobile
there lived a mighty railroad baron.


a man of fifty-one years of age



He owned---that is to say, he was the majority and controlling stock holder of, and served actively as the chairman of the board, or some role equivalent to that, of---chartered railroad corporations the combined tracks of which stretched nearly from one ocean to another, in multiply intersecting ways.

Across America, and especially out West---on the Great Plains, in the Rockies, and out through the high and low deserts to the Pacific Ocean, one could scarcely travel any distance ata ll through anything remotely like civilization, and often places far outside of it, without crossing steel rails that were under his personal control.

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