The Saint Paul and Pacific Railroad (also known as the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad and the SP&P) was a

shortline railroad :''Short Line is also one of the four railroads in the American version of the popular board game Monopoly, named after the Shore Fast Line, an interurban streetcar line.'' A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that opera ...

in the

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

which existed from 1857 to 1879. Founded as the Minnesota and Pacific Railroad, it was the state's first active railroad.Lovoll, p. 39. It went bankrupt, and the state changed its name to the Saint Paul and Pacific Railroad. The SP&P went bankrupt as well. It was taken over by

James Jerome Hill James Jerome Hill (September 16, 1838 – May 29, 1916) was a Canadian-American railroad director. He was the chief executive officer of a family of lines headed by the Great Northern Railway, which served a substantial area of the Upper Midwe ...

and others, who used the railroad as the basis for building the Great Northern Railway.

Early history

In 1857, the territorial legislature of the state of

issued a charter to the Minnesota and Pacific Railroad to build a standard gauge railway from Stillwater in the east to

St. Paul Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...

in the west.Smalley, p. 295-296. From St. Paul, the main line would extend to Breckenridge in the west (the state's border with the Dakota Territory), while a branch line would extend to St. Cloud, Crow Wing, and

St. Vincent Saint Vincent may refer to: People Saints * Vincent of Saragossa (died 304), a.k.a. Vincent the Deacon, deacon and martyr * Saint Vincenca, 3rd century Roman martyress, whose relics are in Blato, Croatia * Vincent, Orontius, and Victor (died 305) ...

. As the state's first active railroad (though not necessarily the state's first railroad), the Minnesota and Pacific received a grant of of land from the territorial legislature. This was the seventh largest land grant of the 75 given to railroads nationwide between 1850 and 1871. Construction began in the autumn of 1856, and in 1857 the state backed a $5 million bond issue to support the new rail system. But speculators manipulated the nascent railroad's profits, overcharged it for supplies, and sold off some of its assets. It went bankrupt in 1860, and the new state legislature purchased all of its assets for a mere $1,000.

Saint Paul and Pacific

In 1862, the state legislature reorganized the bankrupt railroad as the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. That same year, of track between St. Paul and St. Anthony finally opened. Egbert E. Litchfield bought most of the road's stock, and while the branch line reached Sauk Rapids by 1867 (financed mostly by bonds sold in the

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) little was accomplished on the main line.Ingham, p. 807. Only of track had been laid as of 1865. The railroad built almost no more track between 1867 and 1871. Nonetheless, it heavily promoted the construction of towns every along its length, and was the leading railroad helping to "colonize" Minnesota.Lovoll, p. 40. In December 1870, the

Northern Pacific Railway The Northern Pacific Railway was a transcontinental railroad that operated across the northern tier of the western United States, from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest. It was approved by Congress in 1864 and given nearly of land grants, whic ...

purchased the SP&P. But the Northern Pacific went bankrupt in the

Panic of 1873 The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation known as the "Lon ...

, and E. Darwin Litchfield (Egbert's brother) bought the SP&P back from the bigger road.

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

investors held most of the road's stock, and forced Litchfield to allow a receiver to manage the system. For three more years, little was done by the receiver. But James J. Hill, who ran steamboats on the Red River, knew that the SP&P owned very valuable land grants and saw the potential of the railroad. Hill convinced

John S. Kennedy John Stewart Kennedy (January 4, 1830 – October 30, 1909) was a Scottish-born American businessman, financier and philanthropist. He was a member of the Jekyll Island Club (also known as The Millionaires' Club) on Jekyll Island, Georgia a ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

banker who had represented the Dutch bondholders),

Norman Kittson Norman Wolfred Kittson (March 6, 1814 – May 10, 1888) was one of early Minnesota's most prominent citizens. He was best known as first a fur trader, then a steamboat-line operator and finally a railway entrepreneur and owner of thoroughbre ...

(Hill's friend and a wealthy fur trader), Donald Smith (a

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

banker and executive with the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...

), and George Stephen (Smith's cousin and a wealthy railroad executive) to invest $5.5 million in purchasing the railroad. On March 13, 1878, the Dutch formally signed an agreement transferring their bonds to the investors group and giving them control of the railroad. To finance construction of the SP&P, the road issued bonds that allowed the bearer to receive up to $10,000 per mile of track completed, but only if the line was finished. In February 1879, the group bought out the Litchfields with cash and bonds in the new company. The SP&P showed a $500,000 profit for 1878, and in March 1879 two different courts finally approved the company's emergence from bankruptcy.

Demise and future ownership

On May 23, 1879, the key investors in the railroad formed a new company, the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway (StPM&M), to take over the assets of the SP&P. It did so in June 1879, bringing an end to the existence of the St. Paul and Pacific. On September 18, 1889, Hill changed the name of the

Minneapolis and St. Cloud Railway The Great Northern Railway was an American Class I railroad. Running from Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, it was the creation of 19th-century railroad entrepreneur James Jerome Hill, James J. Hill and was de ...

(a railroad which existed primarily on paper, but which held extensive land grants throughout the Midwest and Pacific Northwest) to the Great Northern Railway.Yenne, p. 23. On February 1, 1890, he transferred ownership of the StPM&M,

Montana Central Railway The Montana Central Railway was a railway company which operated in the American state of Montana from 1886 to 1907. It was constructed by James Jerome Hill's St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway, and became part of the Great Northern Railw ...

, and other rail systems he owned to the Great Northern. Today, Progressive Rail Corp. runs freight trains in Santa Cruz County under the same name St. Paul and Pacific and with the same reporting marks Sp&p.

Footnotes

Bibliography

*Dreiser, Theodore. ''Tragic America.'' London: Constable, 1931. *Fitzsimmons, Bernard. ''150 Years of North American Railroads.'' Hadley Woods, Hertfordshire, U.K.: Winchmore, 1982. *Ingham, John N. "Litchfield, Paul Weeks." In ''Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders.'' Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983. *Lovoll, Odd S. ''Norwegians on the Prairie: Ethnicity and the Development of the Country Town.'' St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 2007. * *Smalley, Eugene Virgil. ''History of the Northern Pacific Railroad.'' New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1883. *Yenne, Bill. ''Great Northern Empire Builder.'' St. Paul, Minn.: MBI Publishing, 2005. {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Paul and Pacific Railroad Railway companies established in 1857 Railway companies disestablished in 1879 Defunct Minnesota railroads Predecessors of the Great Northern Railway (U.S.) 1857 establishments in Minnesota Territory American companies disestablished in 1879 American companies established in 1857