It has been the "creator of cities." [Footnote: James J. Hill, "Highways
of Progress," pp. 235-236.]
Out on those prairies beyond the forests I have seen this general
statement of Mr. Hill's illustrated. Down from Lake Michigan the first
railroad crept toward the Mississippi along the Des Plaines and then the
Illinois, where La Salle had seen from his canoe great herds of buffalo
"trampling by in ponderous columns or filing in long lines morning, noon,
and night." That railroad was a path, not to any particular city but to
the water, a path from water to water, a long portage from the lake to the
Mississippi and back again.
One day, within my memory, a new path was marked by stakes that led away
from that river, off across the prairie, to an uninhabited place which the
first engineers had not known--a place of fire, the fields of coal, of
which the practical Joliet had found signs on his memorable journey. And
so one and another road crossed that prairie (on which I can even now
clearly see the first engine standing in the prairie-grass), making toward
the places of fire, of wood, of grain, of meat, of gold, of iron, of lead,
till the whole prairie was a network of these paths--and now the
"transportation machine" (as Mr.
Pages:
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277