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It may have been the
discovery of gold in California in 1848 that ignited in the American
people the urgent need for more rapid and dependable transportation
facilities in the West. Missouri and the West needed railroads, and
St. Louisans visualized a railroad all the way to the Pacific
Ocean with that railroad starting from their city.
Leaders of St. Louis
secured a Missouri charter in 1849 for the Pacific Railroad
to extend "from St. Louis to the western boundary of Missouri and
thence to the Pacific Ocean." The "ground breaking celebration" was
held on the July 4, 1851.
– Missouri Pacific Historical Society
About 1873 a New
York financier, Jay Gould, became interested in western railroads
when he acquired a large block of stock in the Union Pacific
Railroad. Subsequently, he purchased control of the Kansas Pacific,
the Denver Pacific and the Central Pacific. Gould noted the westward
expansion policy of the new Missouri Pacific Railway as a threat to
his Union Pacific, and in 1879 he bought a controlling interest in
the company and became its president.
In 1982, a Union
Pacific-Missouri Pacific-Western Pacific merger was approved by the
Interstate Commerce Commission. On January 1, 1997, Missouri Pacific
Railroad legally was merged into Union Pacific Railroad, with UPRR
remaining as the surviving corporation. |
