nati, Chicago and St. Louis--embracing 750 miles of lines westward
from Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, to Indianapolis, Springfield, and
Cincinnati, and having traffic connections with St. Louis--was also a
Vanderbilt property at this time, although not under the formal control
of these interests. Another important competing line secured in this
period was the New York, Chicago and St. Louis, built to parallel the
Lake Shore and known as the "Nickel Plate" route. This road extended
from Buffalo to Chicago, and, like the West Shore, had been constructed
with the hope of ultimately selling out to its competitor.

The development of railroad properties under the Vanderbilt influence
was not confined to the territory east of Chicago and the Mississippi
Valley. As early as 1859 a large system of roads had been merged in
the section extending westward from Chicago to Omaha and radiating
throughout Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Wisconsin, Missouri, and other
States. This company was known as the Chicago and North Western
Railroad, and its property, which was one of large and growing value,
by 1886 embraced a system of over 3500 miles of road. Although neither
controlled by the New York Central nor directly affiliated therewith, it
was classed as a Vanderbilt property.

While for many years after the death of the Commodore the Vanderbilt
family remained in direct financial and operating control of the New
York Central and its myriad of subsidiary lines and their genius as
railroad builders and operators was distinctly evident, yet the brains
and resources of the Vanderbilts were not alone responsible for
the brilliant career of the system down to recent times. William H.
Vanderbilt, though a man of unusual ability, did not possess the breadth
of view or the sagacity of his father, and in the course of a few years
he found himself exposed to a cyclone of public criticism. He had let
it be widely known that he was personally the owner of over eighty-seven
per cent of the hundred million capital of the company. In 1879 the New
York Legislature, backed by the force of the popular anger and surprise
at the accumulation of a hundred million dollar fortune by one man in
ten years, was investigating the management of the New York Central
with a view to curtailing its power; the rate wars were on between the
seaboard and Chicago; and Jay Gould was threatening to divert all the
traffic of his Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific lines from the New Y