Description: Between The Ocean And The Lakes. The Story Of Erie Railroad. By Edward H Mott. Illustrated with photos. Rare 1st edition in remarkably good condition. Also includes publisher's promotional leaflet, with the endorsements of industrialists and railroad magnates of the day. Huge book, measures 12 x 10 and 2 1/4 thick. Published 1899 by John S Collins, New York. Very good condition. Bright cover, firm binding, strong hinges and clean text. From the book: Why the history of a railroad? Particularly, why a history of the Erie? Many times during his work in the production of this Story of Erie the author was asked those questions. They were apt, and it was but natural that they should have been asked, for, at first thought, it is difficult for the average person to understand what there might be of interest or general importance in the details of the conception or building of a railroad. To-day there could be but little more than local interest or importance in such an undertaking, for the land is thick with railroads, and the purpose of none now constructing or to be constructed can be broader than that of local benefit. But when the idea for a railroad through the region and over the route now occupied by the Erie first found expression, seventy years ago, railroads were so strange in this country, so almost unheard-of, in fact, that in but three States of the Union had there been any movement made toward a practical application of them as a means of transportation - in Massachusetts, in Pennsylvania, and in Maryland; less than sixty miles of railroad, or of what then passed for railroad, in all the broad land. The Massachusetts railroad was built to haul stone on, from a quarry, by horse-power. The Pennsylvania railroads were used and to be used for hauling coal from the mines, the cars running by their own gravity, or being hauled by stationary engines up inclined planes. The Maryland railroad alone had been designed for the carrying of passengers as well as freight, with the hope that some day it might extend as far as the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia - and the cars were drawn by horses. The idea of the railroad as the one great factor in the development, the expansion, the civilization of the country had not inspired any of the undertakings named, and had found no expression until William C. Redfield evolved it and called public attention to it, before the sound of a locomotive whistle or the whirr of a locomotive's wheels had been heard on the American continent; and from that idea came the Erie, the first projected link of all the links of railroad that have been welded into one great chain of connection between the Atlantic and the Pacific, making not only possible, but creating, the marvelous development of theretofore unknown regions, and peopling them with industrious millions.When the movement toward the construction of the Erie began, Missouri was the only State west of the Mississippi; Chicago was a small village clustered about Fort Dearborn, and yet unnamed; Buffalo was a Western village, and Detroit a frontier post. Summer and winter saw the poor emigrant, with his whole household in a hooded wagon, which often served for vehicle, stable, and tavern, moving toilsomely to the distant West, or what was then called the distant West, and it was rarely more distant than Illinois. Beyond the Mississippi was virtually a land unknown to emigration.Redfield's idea for such a railroad as he advocated involved even more than the project of those who at last acted upon it. He planned for the construction of a railroad from the Hudson River to the Mississippi, but that was a project beyond the power of his contemporaries to grasp the magnitude of. They said: "Let us reach Lake Erie with our railroad. Then other railroads will come from the West to meet us." And railroads did come from the West to meet them, brought into existence by the advance of the Erie westward. Then, as the Erie project took on form and substance, its purpose aroused the East to action, and Massachusetts began the pushing of a railroad westward, to share in, if not rule, the prospects brought to view by the Erie idea.
Price: 218.9 USD
Location: Buffalo, New York
End Time: 2024-10-22T02:09:58.000Z
Shipping Cost: 15.13 USD
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