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, andthe steam powered locomotives that traversed them, supplied Chicago withvast new markets, resources, and people who quickly transformed it from a unagitated Frontier village into a highly populated industrial powerhouse. TheChicago of 1830 was hardly a city at all. Fort Dearborn located near the secern of what is now the Chicago River was bogged down with mud andtormented by disease and Indian wars. By the 1833 when the city wasincorporated, a warehouse, dry goods store, and hotel had all been built. William B. Ogden, the first city manager of Chicago was also the first to attemptto give Chicago a railroad. He chartered the Galena and Chicago Railroadin 1836, but it collapsed with the economic contingency of 1837 (Berger 3). Ogden tried again in 1846, and on October 22, 1848 Chicagos firstlocomotive, Pioneer, was loaded onto the tracks (Casey, Dou glas 59). Inretrospect, Pioneer turned out to be a fitting ca-ca for the citys first appurtenance, because by 1866 there were more than forty railroads servingChicago and the citys population had skyrocketed to just under 300,000. There were many problems that needed to be dogged starting in the 1830s,before a railroad could become a versatile enough to be a cost effectivecarrier of onus and people. The nations original tracks had beenbuilt mainly of wood, although cheaper than iron, it was quickly decidedthat irons durability was well worth the extra cost. Another developmentwas the placement of ballas, or pebbles, that covered the perforate of thetracks and added weight and stability along with drainage to the tracks. Also, the trains were known to collide head on into grazing animals. Theproblem lay in how to keep the animal from beingness pulled under the trainand causing it to derail. This answer came with the placement of a hoodplate on the front of the locomotive so that whatever hit the train wouldbe pushed harmlessly in front of it and could later be cleared withoutendangering the train. Other major safety issues found solutions with theutilization of lights and horns (Gordon 27-33). By 1848, when Chicago was piddle to start building railroads, the technology had already beendeveloped enough to conduct real business.Charters for railroads leading to Chicago soon began to pour in. After the Galena and Chicago kernel Railroad was completed shortly after