ed States
to engage in its construction, three years time would be amply
sufficient * * * * At the very moderate rate of ten miles an hour, a
man could go from New York to the mouth of the Columbia River in
twelve days and a half."

Another enthusiast was Hartwell Carver, grandson of Jonathan Carver
the explorer of 1766. His proposition was to build a railroad from
Lake Michigan (Chicago) to the South Pass, with two branches from
there, one to the mouth of the Columbia River, and the other due west
to California. South Pass received its name from being South of the
pass in general use. Strange to say his "true Pacific Route"
formulated without knowledge of the lay of the land was absolutely
the best and the one that today is followed by the Union Pacific
Railway and affiliated lines, substituting Granger for South Pass.
Carver's proposition was to build the line by a private corporation
who were to receive a grant of land for their right of way, the whole
distance, with the privilege of taking from the public lands, material
used in construction, with the further privilege of purchasing from
the United States Government, eight million acres of selected lands
from the public domains at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre,
payable in the stock of the Company. His road was to be laid on stone
foundations and to be equipped with sleeping cars, dining cars and
salon cars. His ideas as to the cost of the work were far too low, but
outside of this he was seemingly inspired. At the time he was writing,
1835, there were seven hundred and ninety-seven miles of railroads in
operation in the United States. Passenger coaches were patterned after
the old stage coach, the track iron straps on wooden stringers, yet
here he was outlining what today is an accomplished fact. A railroad
with stone ballast from Chicago to the South Pass (Granger, Wyo.) one
branch diverging from there to the mouth of the Columbia, (Portland,
Ore.,) the other to California, (San Francisco and Los Angeles, Cal.,)
traversed by trains comprised of sleeping cars, dining cars and buffet
cars. The Union Pacific and its connections.

Carver spent the best years of his life and what was in those days an
ample fortune in endeavoring to further his project. The great
opposition to his plan arose from the proposed diversion of the public
lands and the stock feature, neither Congress nor the public taking
kindly to the idea of the Government giving lands for stoc