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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (July 5, 1962)
THURSDAY. JULY S. 1962 MEDFOHD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFOHD. OREGON Lincoln Signed Land Grant Act 100 Years Ago Br JAMES R. OUINN Omaha, Neb. UPD One hun dred ye an ago on July 1. Abraham Lincoln scratched his signature on a document known as the Railroad Land Grant act. Less than seven years la IS A ua. i . i " 1-u.w-n.i i fjii r w ii i it i i i ii 13. X I ter, the new law had made possible two ribbons of steel track stretching 1.775 miles irom Omaha to Sacramento, Calif. The law opened the way to the west. The Land Grant act provid ed that large tracts of land be given several railroad corpor ations. In return, the railroads agreed to lay tracks. The Union Pacific Pailroad company was the first to be commissioned. The company was granted nearly 19 million acres of public domain, most of it territory known only to the Indians, stagecoach driv ers and pony express riders. Central Pacific's commission ing followed a short time la ter. In what the government called ' one of the marvels of the age," the Union Pacific and Central Pacific laid the track from Omaha to Sacra mento in less than seven cal endar years. The final "golden spike" was hammered into place at Promontory, Utah, May 10, 1868. The life line to the west was complete. The transcontinental tele graph wire, finished only 7'i years earlier, chattered out to the nation the single word: Done. I The road, based on millions of heavy wood ties, was built by Union Pacific forces work ing west from Omaha and Central Pacific crews working east from bacramcnto. From Omaha the Union Pa cific branch laid down 1,086 miles of track, despite bitter weather and the raids of the great plains Indian tribes who were becoming alarmed over Hie Increasing migration of whites. The men who did it were mostly Irish immigrants. from oacramento, more than 12,000 Chinese coolies shouldered an even tougher Job. There was heavy blast ing through the Sierra Ne vada and Rocky mountains. There were the same fierce weather and Indian raids. On one 60-mlle stretch alone, IS tunnels had to be blasted through the mountains. The Union Pacific, the only rail link to the west until completion of the Northern Pacific in the middle 1880s, triggered the first stage of a trans - Mississippi population explosion. ' In 1860, the population of the entire west was just over a million persons. Most of these lived within a day's travel of the Mississippi riv er. Just 30 years later, the U.S. census bureau counted more than 25 million persons west of the Mississippi. They in cluded miners, trappers, busi nessmen and farmers - farm ers who flooded in by the thousands to take advantage n( provisions of the Home stead act, signed only 40 days before the Railroad Land Grant act. The "iron horse" of the late 1800s proved quickly It could conquer the great American desert, the Rockies, Sierras and the weather. Where a stagecoach trip from Omaha to Virginia City. Nev., had required 17 days and nights of travel before 1862, a rail trip from Omaha to Sacramento now took less than a week. The railroad speeded the industrial revolution of the late 19th century, putting ag riculture and timber deposits of the west within reaching distance of the industrial east. The railroad also brought the security needed by the growing population. Gen wuiiam r. Sherman, army commander of the wert after the Civil war. said the rail road was "positively essential to the binding together of the republic." Private Electric Energy Sales Dip Salem - fllTD - Jonel C. Hill, Slate Public Utility Commis sioner, said Tuesday that pri vate electric energy sales In Oregon dropped slightly in May, compared to May, 1061 During May, 462.000 resi dential customers consumed more than 36.1 million kilo watts hours - .25 of a per cent below May of last year. This is the first month sime March, lf)5R, when electric energy sales have not in. creased over the previous year. Hill quoted a spokesman for the biggest electric utility in Oregon - Pacific Power & Light Co. - as saying a com bination of weather, billing lag, and lost of revenue due to a sale of an operating area I accounted for tht leveling off. I i : LT A A V AAV I I t V J II I I l lX I I ill i I ! i l A 1 1 i Zl V V L-l 11 II Hi H n U 1UJJJLU LL -xu JJ jLXA JLL t Wn. 1 II : II I ; - I A ll : : ViV V H t II SjZzXZS 11 II II 111 I m ohm I I l .. 11 II T-' T . J lllltiVN I'll ( , II L i r wvilli I -V . I 1 II CTY J I 4&ri1k. anil email mAnfhlv niumonl I I . - I tS II XT a 'X. Atin&ZMhKfm itV I ii i s r i w , p ii ii n x ywmmiAX noius vour selection i ran . . . i i : v vs bl ii ftdifi . x a saw' cxiti v 2&'f i II I I L Bra i v &ti mmx'?twtxz i ill ii i irwr-xM- v . msjr kMii.mhm?xki VIV )V$ A. 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