Yet another factor in the GN’s success in weathering the financial storm was Hill’s ability to open new markets and add new tonnages to his trains.

Harriman was a truly remarkable man, one of the most brilliant railroaders and formidable capitalists in American history, whose genius has been somewhat masked behind a partially deserved reputation for shady dealing.

they too now saw looming before them the prospect of a mighty transcontinental railroad. This, the prize of what for most of them was their homeland, was the Canadian Pacific (CP). For George Stephen and Donald Smith, the CP would become the royal road to the highest ranks of Canadian and British society; but for James J. Hill and John S. Kennedy,

The sequestering of the big Butte market was duck soup for the aggressive Hill and allowed him to play the role that would make him a legend: forcing competitiveness on a rigged market.

His near-manic preoccupation with his business gripped him like a demon.

But he never gave the citizens of Spokane the rate reductions he had promised.

The epic battle of American railroad history began in 1901 and centered on control of the strategic Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad (the “Q”). Once Hill and Morgan had consolidated the NP with the GN under Hill’s effective tutelage, it made more sense than ever to forge a connecting link between the Twin Cities–Duluth termini of the two ra

Stephen and Smith would soon use their newly acquired riches to build the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Hill would join them for a while, but the Manitoba would always remain the focus of his career and his investments. The associates gloried, of course, in their spectacular success, the product of enormous risks and efforts. But as they looked toward

When competition suited him in entering a market, he competed fiercely. But when competition became wasteful to him, he hesitated not a whit to end it, even if this meant joining with old enemies and creating an unblushing situation of monopoly.