mounting to six million three hundred and
two thousand dollars.

The Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad reached St. Joseph, February,
1859, Kansas City, soon afterwards. The Missouri Pacific Railway
reached Kansas City, October 1865. Owing to the fact that there were
these railroad connections between the East and the eastern terminal
of the line the work of construction was greatly facilitated and the
expense of building the line greatly reduced.

The headway made was slow at first. The work was new to the officers
in charge as well as to the men. The following table shows the
progress made:

Sept. 1, 1863 commenced work at State Line (Wyandotte, Kan.)
Nov. 28, 1864 reached Lawrence--40 miles.
Oct. 30, 1865 first 40 miles accepted by the Government.
Dec. 15, 1865 50 miles done.
Aug. 18, 1866 reached Manhattan--118 miles.
Oct. 7, 1866 reached Pawnee (Fort Riley) 135 miles.
Jan. 7, 1867 to Mile Post 155.
April 8, 1867 to Mile Post 181.
Oct. 15, 1867 to Mile Post 335.
Fall 1867 to Mile Post 405 (Phil Sheridan.)
Mar. 24, 1870 reached Kit Carson--487 miles.
Aug. 15, 1870 completed into Denver.

The difference in altitude between Kansas City and the western
boundary of Kansas is some twenty-seven hundred feet and is thus
distributed--six hundred feet the first two hundred miles, seven
hundred and sixty-nine feet in the next hundred miles, and thirteen
hundred and twenty thence to the Kansas line.

The original intention had been to follow the Republican River, but
this was changed and the "Smoky Hill Route" from Junction City, Kan.,
west adopted. When the road reached Monument, three hundred and
eighty-six miles from Kansas City, dissensions arose among the
stockholders. One faction was for building to San Diego on the Pacific
Coast via New Mexico and Arizona, another was for building to Pueblo
and up the Arkansas River, while the third and successful one was for
pushing straight ahead to Denver and from there to a connection with
the main line of the Union Pacific Railroad,--the idea being to secure
for St. Louis a portion of the trans-continental business and the line
the carrying thereof.

The line was built under contract by the following firms: Hallett and
Fremont--Wyandotte to Lawrence, Kan., thirty-nine miles. Ira M.
Schoemaker and Company--Lawrence to Mile Post one hundred and forty--a
distance of one hundred miles. Schoemaker and Miller--Mile Post one
h