The Rail Center of the Nation :: American History

The Rail Center of the Nation (It got a 98% in AP US-History) The nation network of railroads laid from 1848 through the Civil War, and the steam powered locomotives that traversed them, supplied Chicago with vast new markets, resources, and people who quickly transformed it from a quiet Frontier village into a highly populated industrial powerhouse. The Chicago of 1830 was hardly a city at all. Fort Dearborn located near the fork of what is now the Chicago River was bogged down with mud and tormented by disease and Indian wars. By the 1833 when the city was incorporated, a warehouse, dry good's store, and hotel had all been built. William B. Ogden, the first mayor of Chicago was also the first to attempt to give Chicago a railroad. He chartered the Galena and Chicago Railroad in 1836, but it collapsed with the economic disaster of 1837 (Berger 3). Ogden tried again in 1846, and on October 22, 1848 Chicago's first locomotive, "Pioneer", was loaded onto the tracks (Casey, Douglas 59). In retrospect, "Pioneer" turned out to be a fitting name for the city's first train, because by 1866 there were more than forty railroads serving Chicago and the city's population had skyrocketed to just under 300,000. There were many problems that needed to be resolved starting in the 1830s, before a railroad could become a versatile enough to be a cost effective carrier of freight and people. The nation's original tracks had been built mainly of wood, although cheaper than iron, it was quickly decided that iron's durability was well worth the extra cost. Another development was the placement of ballas, or pebbles, that covered the bottom of the tracks and added weight and stability along with drainage to the tracks. Also, the trains were known to collide head on into grazing animals. The problem lay in how to keep the animal from being pulled under the train and causing it to derail. This answer came with the placement of a hood plate on the front of the locomotive so that whatever hit the train would be pushed harmlessly in front of it and could later be cleared without endangering the train. Other major safety issues found solutions with the utilization of lights and horns (Gordon 27-33). By 1848, when Chicago was ready to start building railroads, the technology had already been developed enough to conduct real business. Charters for railroads leading to Chicago soon began to pour in. After the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad was completed shortly after