James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest (The Oklahoma Western Biographies Book 12)

Harriman and Schiff pressed for the allowance of a one-third interest in the Burlington for the UP, to achieve a soothing community of interest. The Morgan-Hill forces turned them down flat. Such an accommodation, they purred, might represent an illegal “restraint of trade” under federal statute. To understand the fierce struggle that now erupted,

Jim Hill wasted little time, after gaining full control of the Saint Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba, in sending Farley packing. Hill showed little sensitivity to the old man’s ego, to his greed, or to his clear ability to retaliate. When Farley confronted Hill in the spring of 1879 with the impossible demand that he be made a director of the new c

In his conceptualization of the Asian market, Jim Hill was both a prophet and a dreamer. He did foresee the remarkable evolution of the Pacific Rim–Southeast Asian economies that would come to fruition more than a half-century after his demise.

As the new railroad, destined to become one of the world’s greatest, took shape during the next several months, the rising dominance of James J. Hill became readily apparent.

He now became one of the first men in the business to see the looming shadows of coming events and to act accordingly. Assessing the status of his prosperous regional railroad, he came to see it as one component in an evolving national transportation system. The day of prosperous, independent, regional roads must soon end; the future lay in integra

In completing the railroad, he had demonstrated his toughness, his stamina, his unflinching ability to discipline and to fire people, his competence in controlling large work forces, his quickness in mastering the intricate details of finance—in other words, he had proven his mettle.

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

An eminently practical man, the courtly Perkins knew well what Hill had earlier ascertained: that even profitable regional roads like the “Q” must either expand to the sea, in order to secure the transcontinental through-rates they needed to compete, or be absorbed by other such systems. He knew that it would be wiser for the Burlington to consolid

Hill genuinely cared about quality rail service and about public opinion.