known as the Oregon & Transcontinental. In September,
1883, he took a special train, full of distinguished visitors, over his
lines to witness the driving of the last spike near Helena, Montana. On
the way out, they stopped at Bismarck to help lay the corner-stone for
an ambitious new capitol of the Territory of Dakota. From Duluth to
Tacoma the new line brought in immigrants whose freight made its chief
business.

South of the Northern Pacific, the original main line of the Union
Pacific ran from Omaha up the Platte Trail through Cheyenne to Ogden,
with a branch from Kansas City to Denver and Cheyenne. Between the main
line and the branch the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy constructed a road
that reached Denver in May, 1882. Here it met, in 1883, the Denver & Rio
Grande, a narrow-gauge road that penetrated the divide by way of the
canyon of the Arkansas River, and extended to the Great Salt Lake. The
two roads together offered a competition to the Union Pacific for its
whole length from the Missouri River to Ogden, and drove that road to
extend feeder branches south to the Gulf and north into Oregon.

Farther south the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe stretched the whole length
of Kansas and followed the old trail to Santa Fe and the Rio Grande, and
thence to Old Mexico. Its owners cooperated with the owners of the
Atlantic & Pacific franchise, and the Southern Pacific of California, to
build a connecting link between the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe at
Albuquerque and the Colorado River at the Needles. From this point the
Southern Pacific traversed the valleys of California. In October, 1883,
trains were running from San Francisco to St. Louis over this road.

[Illustration: By 1870 the railway net had covered the eastern half of
the United States and had just begun its Pacific extension. There were
52,914 miles of railroad.]

[Illustration: By 1890 the railway mileage of the United States had
increased to 163,597, extending the railway net over the whole
trans-Missouri region, and reinforced by lines in Canada and Mexico.

THE WESTERN RAILROADS AND THE CONTINENTAL FRONTIER, 1870-1890

(Based upon the maps showing density of population in the Eleventh
Rand-McNally Official Rail-Census, and upon Appleton's Railway Guide,
November, 1871, and the way Guide, August, 1891.)]

The Southern Pacific of California met the other continental lines at
the Fort Yuma crossing of the Colorado River. The Texas Pacific had got
only to