The film offers a fictionalized account of the struggle to build the Kansas Pacific Railway in the early 1860s just prior to the American Civil War. United States Interstate Commerce Commission Division of Valuation report … ", Petrowski, William R. "The Kansas Pacific Railroad in the Southwest. See Bleeding Kansas. Our cookies are delicious. The line opened up the settlement of the central Great Plains, and its link from Kansas City to Denver provided the last link in the coast-to-coast railway network in 1870. The railroad was consolidated with the Union Pacific in 1880. The company began construction on its main line westward from Kansas City in September 1863 and by the next year, the first 40 miles of the line to Lawrence was in operation. It failed to get funding to go west of Colorado. The original intent of the railroad was to build a line west from Kansas City, Kansas to Fort Riley, Kansas, then north to join the Union Pacific main line at Fort Kearny in Nebraska. This line was not actually connected to the Union Pacific line, and after controversy … On the Kansas Pacific Railway [graphic]. It advertises the "shortest and quickest, therefore the cheapest, route to Colorado." The Kansas Pacific Railroad began in 1855 as the Leavenworth, Pawnee and Western Railroad. (Last Privacy Policy Update July 2020), Byways & Historic Trails – Great Drives in America, Soldiers and Officers in American History, Delphine LaLaurie and Her Haunted Mansion, Boston, Massachusetts – The Revolution Begins. The struggle to build the railway against the backdrop of the American Civil War was depicted in the 1953 western movie Kansas Pacific, starring Sterling Hayden and Eve Miller. The new company's intention to extend the old Kansas Pacific mainline through the Rockies was strengthened by renewed competition by its archrival, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy. It was originally the "Union Pacific, Eastern Division", although it was completely independent. By November 1864, the rails had … While the railroad’s groundbreaking began in Wyandotte (now part of Kansas City, Kansas), the Missouri side of the city still honors its transportation history (Arabia Steamboat Museum, National Airline History Museum, 1914’s Union Station). They are housed in sequential order from plate number 1 to 64. With the backing of German investors, the Kansas Pacific (KP) began construction on the Colorado extension in October 1869. He rode on the cowcatcher of the locomotive and arrived in Salina KS. The railroad was consolidated with the Union Pacific in 1880, and its mainline continues to be an integral part of the Union Pacific network today. By the fall of 1866, the line had reached Junction City and in 1867 to Salina. On August 15, 1870, the two KP branches met on the Colorado Eastern Plains at Comanche Crossing, which was renamed Strasburg in honor of an engineer of the Kansas Pacific. It advertises the "shortest and quickest, therefore the cheapest, route to Colorado." Creator: Kansas Pacific Railway Company Date: May 1877 - Browse 3 images. Bell. In March 1869, the name was changed by Act of the United States Congress to the Kansas Pacific. My great-grandfather, Joseph Schneider came to Kansas in 1869. ", This page was last edited on 27 October 2019, at 00:11. The Kansas Pacific and Denver Pacific lines intersected at the Denver "Jersey Junction", approximately three miles north of downtown. No construction was completed by this company but it received a charter from the U. S. Congres… It was established under the Pacific Railway Act, to create a second southerly branch of the transcontinental railroad alongside the Union Pacific. The Strasburg "joining of the rails" of the Kansas Pacific in August 15, 1870, actually marked the true completion of a coast-to-coast railway network in the United States. Included are views of Kansas, Colorado, and Missouri of railroads, depots, machine shops, roundhouses, locomotive with snow plow, bridges, towns, landscapes, buffalo hunters, cattle, horse race track, the University of Kansas, and a Kansas … When the Burlington withdrew its plans for its own transcontinental line, however, the Union Pacific lost interest in extending a line west from Denver. A geographically correct map of the Kansas Pacific Railway showing the only direct route to Denver and all the popular … By the 1870’s, it operated many of the long-distance lines in Kansas and soon extended the national railway network westward across that state and into Colorado. Your email address will not be published. It was a federally chartered railroad, backed with government land grants. In 1868, the U.S. Congress enacted a law that was signed by President Andrew Johnson to build a second-phase extension of the line to the Rocky Mountains, with the intention of continuing past Denver through the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, to compete with the Union Pacific main line. The original intent of the railroad was to build a line west from Kansas City, Kansas across Kansas to Fort Riley, then north to join the Union Pacific main line at Fort Kearny in Nebraska. Required fields are marked *. in the Spring of 1869. The construction of the line was motivated in part by the desire of the U.S. government to extend transportation routes into Kansas, which had been the scene of ongoing conflict between future Union and Confederate sympathizers even prior to the start of the American Civil War (1861-1865). Authorized by the United States Congress as part of the Pacific Railway Act, its mission was to create a second southerly branch of the transcontinental railroad, alongside the Union Pacific.