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The Genesis of the Great Northern's Mesabi Ore Traffic*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Joseph W. Thompson
Joseph W. Thompson
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Extract

In his valedictory address when retiring as Chairman of the Board of Directors in 1912, James J. Hill said of the Great Northern Railway Company, “The financial outlook of this company is as well assured as that of most governments. … No emergency can surprise it.” 1 The rise of the Great Northern to this almost impregnable position revolved mainly around Hill's far-famed leadership and two major commodities—wheat and iron ore.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , December 1956 , pp. 551 - 557
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1956

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References

1 Great Northern Railway Company, Annual Report, 1912, p. 23.

2 Hereafter referred to as the Manitoba. The Manitoba was a predecessor of the Great Northern.

3 Pyle, Joseph Gilpin, The Life of James J. Hill (New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1926), I. 464.Google Scholar

4 Minnesota Railroad Commission, Annual Report, 1882, p. 87.Google Scholar

5 Pylc, James J. Hill, I, p. 464.

6 Ibid.

7 Vaughan, WalterThe Life and Work of Sir William Van Home (New York: The Century Co., 1920), pp. 217–255.Google Scholar

8 Guarantee Trust vs. Duluth and Winnipeg et at., U. S. Circuit Ct., Dist. of Minnesota, Fifth Division, 190 (1895), letter of Sir William Van Home to W. H. Fisher, General Manager, Duluth and Winnipeg Railroad, January 16, 1893.

9 Timothy Foley et al. vs. Guarantee Trust, U.S. Circuit Ct., Dist. of Minnesota, Fifth Division, 233 (1896), affidavit of William Van Home, April 30, 1896, p. 4.

10 Foley vs. Guarantee Trust, 233, affidavit of J. W. Fitch, General Manager of the Duluth and Winnipeg, April 30, 1896, p. 9.

11 Memorandum from Mr. C. E. Jefferson, Vice President of the Canadian Pacific Railway, May 3, 1955. Records of the Great Northern give the date of the sale to the Eastern Railway of Minnesota, a subsidiary of the Great Northern, as June, 1898.

12 Superior Inland Ocean, September 24, 1898.

13 Report of the Statistician of Superior, 1899, p. 12.

14 U.S. Congress, Hearings before the Committee on Investigation of the United States Steel Corporation, 62d Cong., 2d Sess., House (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1912), P. 3155. J. N. Hill was then the president and L. W. Hill was the vice president of the Eastern Railway Company of Minnesota, a subsidiary company of the Great Northern at the head of the Lakes.

15 U.S. Congress, U. S. Steel Hearings, p. 3155.

16 U.S. Congress, U. S. Steel Hearings, p. 3155.

17 James J. Hill, “Railroad Problems, Difficulties and Needs of Transportation in the United States,” address given by J. J. Hill before the Interstate Commerce Commission, Minneapolis, Minnesota, December 20, 1906.