cific by way of the Atchison, Topeka
and Santa Fe, making connections through Albuquerque and Needles with
San Francisco. The fondest hopes of railway promoters seemed to be
realized.

[Illustration: UNITED STATES IN 1870]

=Western Railways Precede Settlement.=--In the Old World and on our
Atlantic seaboard, railways followed population and markets. In the Far
West, railways usually preceded the people. Railway builders planned
cities on paper before they laid tracks connecting them. They sent
missionaries to spread the gospel of "Western opportunity" to people in
the Middle West, in the Eastern cities, and in Southern states. Then
they carried their enthusiastic converts bag and baggage in long trains
to the distant Dakotas and still farther afield. So the development of
the Far West was not left to the tedious processes of time. It was
pushed by men of imagination--adventurers who made a romance of
money-making and who had dreams of empire unequaled by many kings of the
past.

These empire builders bought railway lands in huge tracts; they got more
from the government; they overcame every obstacle of canon, mountain,
and stream with the aid of science; they built cities according to the
plans made by the engineers. Having the towns ready and railway and
steamboat connections formed with the rest of the world, they carried
out the people to use the railways, the steamships, the houses, and the
land. It was in this way that "the frontier speculator paved the way for
the frontier agriculturalist who had to be near a market before he could
farm." The spirit of this imaginative enterprise, which laid out
railways and towns in advance of the people, is seen in an advertisement
of that day: "This extension will run 42 miles from York, northeast
through the Island Lake country, and will have five good North Dakota
towns. The stations on the line will be well equipped with elevators and
will be constructed and ready for operation at the commencement of the
grain season. Prospective merchants have been active in securing
desirable locations at the different towns on the line. There are still
opportunities for hotels, general merchandise, hardware, furniture, and
drug stores, etc."

[Illustration: _Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N.Y._

A TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE]

Among the railway promoters and builders in the West, James J. Hill,
of the Great Northern and allied lines, was one of the most forceful
figures. He knew t