The Northern Pacific Railroad

In 1869, Jay Cooke, the brilliant but idiosyncratic American banker, decided to finance the Northern Pacific, a transcontinental railroad planned from Duluth, Minnesota, to Seattle. M. John Lubetkin tells how Cooke’s gamble reignited war with the Sioux, rescued George Armstrong Custer from obscurity, created Yellowstone Park, pushed frontier settlement four hundred miles westward, and triggered the Panic of 1873. Staking his reputation and wealth on the Northern Pacific, Cooke was soon whipsawed by the railroad’s mismanagement, questionable contracts, and construction problems. Financier J. P. Morgan undermined him, and the Crédit Mobilier scandal ended congressional support. When railroad surveyors and army escorts ignored Sioux chief Sitting Bull’s warning not to enter the Yellowstone Valley, Indian attacks—combined with alcoholic commanders—led to embarrassing setbacks on the field, in the nation’s press, and among investors. Lubetkin’s suspenseful narrative describes events played out from Wall Street to the Yellowstone and vividly portrays the soldiers, engineers, businessmen, politicians, and Native Americans who tried to build or block the Northern Pacific.

“All aboard the streamlined, Vista-Dome North Coast Limited leaving on Track 1 for Minnesota’s Lake Region, the vast prairies of North Dakota, Montana’s magnificent Rockies, Idaho’s lakes and forests, the Inland Empire of Spokane to Puget Sound country, and the great seaports of Seattle-Tacoma and Portland.” The Northern Pacific was always a progressive leader in railroading, and was the first to offer sleeping and dining car service from St. Paul to the Pacific Northwest. Covering the 30s through the '60s, this book's outstanding vintage photography highlights the North Coast Limited (the finest passenger train in North America), the faster Vista-Dome passenger trains, NP's team and diesel locomotives, and NP's Freight cars, Maintenance-of-way and Cabooses.