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| rock island railroad historical society 1: Rock Island Railroad in Arkansas Michael E. Hibblen, 2017 For nearly 80 years, the Rock Island was a major railroad in Arkansas providing passenger and freight services. A decline in rail travel after World War II and an increase in trucks hauling freight over government-subsidized interstates were among factors that left the railroad struggling. Efforts to merge with other railroads were stalled for years by federal regulators. The Rock Island filed for bankruptcy in 1975 and attempted a reorganization, but creditors wanted the assets liquidated, with a judge shutting it down in 1980. Most of the tracks that traversed the state were taken up, but a few relics, like the Little Rock passenger station and the Arkansas River bridge, remain as monuments to this once great railroad. |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: A Mighty Fine Road H. Roger Grant, 2020-10-06 The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad's history is one of big booms and bigger busts. When it became the first railroad to reach and then cross the Mississippi River in 1856, it emerged as a leading American railroad company. But after aggressive expansion and a subsequent change in management, the company struggled and eventually declared bankruptcy in 1915. What followed was a cycle of resurrections and bankruptcies; a grueling, ten-year, ultimately unsuccessful battle to merge with the Union Pacific; and the Rock Island's final liquidation in 1981. But today, long after its glory days and eventual demise, the Mighty Fine Road has left behind a living legacy of major and feeder lines throughout the country. In his latest work, railroad historian H. Roger Grant offers an accessible, gorgeously illustrated, and comprehensive history of this iconic American railroad. |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: The Rock Island Line Bill Marvel, 2013-10-01 Explore the rich history of the legendary railroad that spanned the American Midwest in this beautifully illustrated volume. Beginning operations in the mid-nineteenth century, the Rock Island Line served farms and small-town America for more than 140 years. One of the earliest railroads to build westward from Chicago, it was the first to span the Mississippi, advancing the frontier, bringing settlers into the West, and hauling their crops to market. Rock Island’s celebrated Rocket passenger trains also set a standard for speed and service, with suburban runs as familiar to Windy City commuters as the Loop. For most of its existence, the Rock battled competitors much larger and richer than itself. When it finally succumbed, the result was one of the largest business bankruptcies ever. Today, as its engines and stock travel the busy main lines operated by other carriers, the Rock Island Line lives on in the hearts of those whom it employed and served. |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Rock Island Requiem Gregory L. Schneider, 2020-02-05 Celebrated in history and song, the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company—the Rock Island Line—was a powerful Midwestern railroad that once traversed thirteen states with its fast freights and Rocket passenger trains but eventually succumbed to government regulation and a changing economy. Gregory Schneider chronicles the Rock Island’s painful decline and along the way reveals some of the key problems within the American railroad industry during the post–World War II era. Schneider takes readers back to a time when railroads still clung to a storied past to offer new insight into the devastating impact of economic policymaking during the 1960s and 1970s. Schneider recounts the largest railroad liquidation in American history—as well as one of the most successful reorganizations in American business—to depict the demise and ultimate collapse of Rock Island as part of a broader account of hard times in the railroad industry beginning in the 1970s. Schneider weaves a complex story of how business, politics, government bureaucracy, and individual greed helped to limit the economic possibilities of the railroad industry and catapult the Rock Island Railroad into oblivion. Weakened by a troubled economy, the Rock fell victim to inept management and labor union intransigence; but Schneider also reveals how government regulations and price controls prevented innovation, hindered capital acquisition, and favored other forms of transportation that lie beyond the scope of regulation. Railroads were even hurt by taxation of property and real estate while competitors were able to use government-subsidized highways and airports without having to pay taxes to fund them. Now that America has gone on to witness the collapse of such mammoth firms as Enron and Lehman Brothers, not to mention the bankruptcy and bailout of General Motors, the story of the Rock provides an instructive lesson in how a major American enterprise was allowed to fall victim to forces often beyond its control—while the bailout of the Penn Central, at the expense of smaller lines like Rock Island, helped initiate the era of “too big to fail.” For economic historians and railroad buffs alike, Rock Island Requiem is a well-researche |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Streamliners Mike Schafer, Joe Welsh, 2002 Streamliners tells the steamliner story and takes you aboard a wide range of steamliners, from UP's historic M-10000 to America's most talked about train, the California Zephyr, whose descendant was still making tracks across the continent as late as the 1990s--Back cover. |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Grand Excursions on the Upper Mississippi River Curtis C. & Elizabeth M. Roseman & Roseman, 2009-09-01 In June 1854 the Grand Excursion celebrated in festive style the completion of the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad to the Mississippi River. Hundreds of dignitaries including newspaper editors and other journalists; politicians; academics, writers and artists; business and industry leaders; and railroad officials were among those who traveled by rail from Chicago to Rock Island, Illinois, then by steamboat to St. Paul in Minnesota Territory. The travelers were shown a region undergoing rapid settlement by Europeans—an area of great natural beauty offering many promises for additional development. One hundred and fifty years later, the thirteen essays in this volume examine the activities and environments of the 1854 Grand Excursion and place them in the context of an evolving regional identity for the Upper Mississippi River Valley based on the economy, culture, geography, and history of the area. In a series of “excursions,” the contributors explore the building of the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad, eastern newspaper accounts of the 1854 excursion, steamboating, the area’s pictorial landscape, passenger trains along the scenic river, the genesis and features of river towns, the control of the river for navigation, the development of preserves, parks, and recreation areas, the lumber industry, and commercial fishing. The book concludes by examining the resurgence of river-oriented development, as river towns are once again embracing the Mississippi. Generously illustrated with maps, engravings, ephemera, and historic and present-day photographs, Grand Excursions on the Upper Mississippi River will be of interest to tourists and residents of the area, river aficionados, railroad and steamboat history buffs, as well as academics interested in the history, geography, and regional development of the area. |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Bulletin Railway & Locomotive Historical Society, 1949 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Gazetteer George P. Rowell, 1873 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Directory of Historical Organizations in the United States and Canada American Association for State and Local History, 2002 This multi-functional reference is a useful tool to find information about history-related organizations and programs and to contact those working in history across the country. |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Department of the Interior and related agencies appropriations for 1988 United States. Congress. House. Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee on Department of the Interior and Related Agencies, 1987 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: An Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Structures Within the Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor Gray Fitzsimons, 1996 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: The Tootin' Louie Donovan L. Hofsommer, 2005 The definitive history of one of the Midwest's most remarkable railroads. |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Traqueros Jeffrey Marcos Garcilazo, 2012 Perhaps no other industrial technology changed the course of Mexican history in the United States--and Mexico--than did the coming of the railroads. Tens of thousands of Mexicans worked for the railroads in the United States, especially in the Southwest and Midwest. Construction crews soon became railroad workers proper, along with maintenance crews later. Extensive Mexican American settlements appeared throughout the lower and upper Midwest as the result of the railroad. The substantial Mexican American populations in these regions today are largely attributable to 19th- and 20th-century railroad work. Only agricultural work surpassed railroad work in terms of employment of Mexicans. The full history of Mexican American railroad labor and settlement in the United States had not been told, however, until Jeffrey Marcos Garcílazo's groundbreaking research in Traqueros. Garcílazo mined numerous archives and other sources to provide the first and only comprehensive history of Mexican railroad workers across the United States, with particular attention to the Midwest. He first explores the origins and process of Mexican labor recruitment and immigration and then describes the areas of work performed. He reconstructs the workers' daily lives and explores not only what the workers did on the job but also what they did at home and how they accommodated and/or resisted Americanization. Boxcar communities, strike organizations, and traquero culture finally receive historical acknowledgment. Integral to his study is the importance of family settlement in shaping working class communities and consciousness throughout the Midwest. |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society , 1876 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Building Chicago's Subways David Sadowski, 2018 While the elevated Chicago Loop is justly famous as a symbol of the city, the fascinating history of its subways is less well known. The City of Chicago broke ground on what would become the Initial System of Subways during the Great Depression and finished 20 years later. This gigantic construction project, a part of the New Deal, would overcome many obstacles while tunneling through Chicago's soft blue clay, under congested downtown streets, and even beneath the mighty Chicago River. Chicago's first rapid transit subway opened in 1943 after decades of wrangling over routes, financing, and logistics. It grew to encompass the State Street, Dearborn-Milwaukee, and West Side Subways, with the latter modernizing the old Garfield Park L into the median of Chicago's first expressway. Take a trip underground and see how Chicago's I Will spirit overcame challenges and persevered to help with the successful building of the subways that move millions. Building Chicago's subways was national news and a matter of considerable civic pride--making it a Second City no more |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: From Gutenberg to Google Tom Wheeler, 2019-02-26 Network revolutions of the past have shaped the present and set the stage for the revolution we are experiencing today In an era of seemingly instant change, it's easy to think that today's revolutions—in communications, business, and many areas of daily life—are unprecedented. Today's changes may be new and may be happening faster than ever before. But our ancestors at times were just as bewildered by rapid upheavals in what we now call “networks”—the physical links that bind any society together. In this fascinating book, former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler brings to life the two great network revolutions of the past and uses them to help put in perspective the confusion, uncertainty, and even excitement most people face today. The first big network revolution was the invention of movable-type printing in the fifteenth century. This book, its millions of predecessors, and even such broad trends as the Reformation, the Renaissance, and the multiple scientific revolutions of the past 500 years would not have been possible without that one invention. The second revolution came with the invention of the telegraph early in the nineteenth century. Never before had people been able to communicate over long distances faster than a horse could travel. Along with the development of the world's first high-speed network—the railroad—the telegraph upended centuries of stability and literally redrew the map of the world. Wheeler puts these past revolutions into the perspective of today, when rapid-fire changes in networking are upending the nature of work, personal privacy, education, the media, and nearly every other aspect of modern life. But he doesn't leave it there. Outlining “What's Next,” he describes how artificial intelligence, virtual reality, blockchain, and the need for cybersecurity are laying the foundation for a third network revolution. |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: NE-370 Bellevue Interchange, Papillon to Bellevue, Sarpy County , 1982 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Biennial Report Kansas State Historical Society, 1879 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Railroaders without Borders H. Roger Grant, 2015-10-22 For over 25 years, the creatively led Railroad Development Corporation (RDC) has rejuvenated a series of down-and-out and even defunct railroads. Launched in 1987 by Henry Posner III, this investment and management company has demonstrated that it is possible both to have a conscience and to earn a profit in today's railroad industry. With ventures on four continents, RDC has created an admirable record of long-term commitments, respect for local cultures, and protection of the public interest. H. Roger Grant presents a firsthand look at this unique business operation and its triumphs and disappointments. |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Lincoln's Greatest Case: The River, the Bridge, and the Making of America Brian McGinty, 2015-02-09 The untold story of how one sensational trial propelled a self-taught lawyer and a future president into the national spotlight. In May of 1856, the steamboat Effie Afton barreled into a pillar of the Rock Island Bridge, unalterably changing the course of American transportation history. Within a year, long-simmering tensions between powerful steamboat interests and burgeoning railroads exploded, and the nation’s attention, absorbed by the Dred Scott case, was riveted by a new civil trial. Dramatically reenacting the Effie Afton case—from its unlikely inception, complete with a young Abraham Lincoln’s soaring oratory, to the controversial finale—this “masterful” (Christian Science Monitor) account gives us the previously untold story of how one sensational trial propelled a self-taught lawyer and a future president into the national spotlight. |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Proceedings of the ... Annual Meeting of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Meeting, 1906 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: A Railroad Atlas of the United States in 1946 Richard C. Carpenter, 2013-12 In Minnesota, the primary rail routes to the Pacific northwest--the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific--ran westward from Minneapolis-Saint Paul. |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Report of the Librarian of the State Library Massachusetts State Library, 1907 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Public Documents of Massachusetts Massachusetts, 1894 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Report of the Librarian and Annual Supplement to the General Catalogue State Library of Massachusetts, 1894 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Publications of the Illinois State Historical Library, Illinois State Historical Society , 1906 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Smoke Over Oklahoma Augustus J. Veenendaal, 2017-01-17 Oklahoma was in the throes of the Great Depression when Preston George acquired a cheap Kodak folding camera and took his first photographs of steam locomotives. As depression gave way to world war, George kept taking pictures, now with a Graflex camera that could capture moving trains. In this first book devoted solely to George’s work, his black-and-white photographs constitute a striking visual documentary of steam-driven railroading in its brief but glorious heyday in the American Southwest. The pictures also form a remarkable artistic accomplishment in their own right. Prominent among the magnificent action images collected here are the engines that were George’s passion—steam locomotives pulling long freights or strings of gleaming passenger cars through open country. But along with the fireworks of the heavier steam engines slogging through the mountains near the Arkansas border on the Kansas City Southern or climbing Raton Pass in New Mexico on the Santa Fe, George’s photographs also record humbler fare, such as the short trains of the Frisco and Katy piloted by ancient light steamers, and the final years of that state’s interurban lines. Augustus J. Veenendaal Jr.’s brief history of railroads in the Sooner State puts these images into perspective, as does a reminiscence by George’s daughter Burnis on his life and his pursuit of railroad photography. With over 150 images and a wealth of historical and biographical information, this volume makes accessible to an audience beyond the most avid railfans the extent of Preston George's extraordinary achievement. |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: The Directory of Museums & Living Displays Kenneth Hudson, Ann Nicholls, 1985-06-18 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Report of the Librarian of the State Library of Massachusetts State Library of Massachusetts, 1894 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: The Station Agent and the American Railroad Experience H. Roger Grant, 2022-11 Before the widespread popularity of automobiles, buses, and trucks, freight and passenger trains bound the nation together. The Station Agent and the American Railroad Experience explores the role of local frontline workers that kept the country's vast rail network running. Virtually every community with a railroad connection had a depot and an agent. These men and occasionally women became the official representatives of their companies and were highly respected. They met the public when they sold tickets, planned travel itineraries, and reported freight and express shipments. Additionally, their first-hand knowledge of Morse code made them the most informed in town. But as times changed, so did the role of, and the need for, the station agent. Beautifully illustrated with dozens of vintage photographs, The Station Agent and the American Railroad Experience, brings back to life the day-to-day experience of the station agent and captures the evolution of railroad operations as technology advanced. |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Catalogue of Books, Broadsides, Documents of American Historical Interest, Including the Library of Henry N. Moeller of New York, and Important Government Publications from the New Hampshire Historical Society, to be Sold ... on ... February 1st and 2nd [1921] ... American Art Association, 1921 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Library Bulletin University of California, Berkeley. Library, 1910 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: N-370 Improvement, Sarpy County , 1985 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: List of Serials in the University of California Library University of California, Berkeley. Library, 1913 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Historic Rock Island County , 1908 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations for 1988: National Endowment for the Arts United States. Congress. House. Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee on Department of the Interior and Related Agencies, 1987 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Peopling the Plains James R. Shortridge, 1995 This engaging and richly annotated atlas illustrates the distribution of Kansas settlers from diverse cultural and ethnic origins in America and around the world. James R. Shortridge explores how frontier settlement patterns were influenced by railroad routes and promotion; land prices and speculation practices; homesteading laws; U.S. and international social, economic, and political conditions; terrain; weather; and pioneer perseverance. He also demonstrates that many legacies of the original settlers have endured and are apparent today in social, political, agricultural, and religious customs throughout the state. Providing new and enlightening insight into a unique cultural heritage, Peopling the Plains is an invaluable building block for anyone interested in the people and places of Kansas, past and present. |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Report of the Board of Directors St. Louis Public Library, 1894 |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: A Spy for the Union Corey Recko, 2013-09-20 Timothy Webster, best known for his work as a spy for the Union during the Civil War, began his career as a New York City policeman. In the mid-1850s he left the police department and took a job for Allan Pinkerton with his newly formed detective agency. As an operative for Pinkerton's agency, Webster excelled. His cases included tracking a world famous forger, investigating grave robberies in a Chicago cemetery, and seeking to uncover a plot to destroy the Rock Island Bridge. It was also as a Pinkerton detective that Webster made his greatest contribution to his country when he was part of a small group of operatives that uncovered a plot to assassinate then President-elect Abraham Lincoln in 1861. Webster went on to serve the United States as a spy in the Civil War. He traveled to the Confederate Capital multiple times and made many connections high up in the Confederate military and government. For a time he was the Union's top spy, but his career came to an abrupt end when, in 1862, he was betrayed by fellow spies and became the first spy executed in the Civil War. |
| rock island railroad historical society 1: Occasional Publications (Illinois State Historical Society) Illinois State Historical Society, 1922 |
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