Sublime

Jim Hill worked incessantly at improving every aspect of the railroad’s structure and operation. He traveled back and forth along the line in his business car, looking for dips and bumps and spying out curves that could be straightened and grades that could be lessened. More than any other railroad leader of the day, he had an engineer’s passion fo

... See more

JAMES J. Hill ranks among the great organizers and managers of the American West. Born in Canada in 1838, Hill moved nearly two decades later to the Twin Cities, where he quickly exhibited the tireless energy and foresight that characterized his entire career. By his early forties he had helped organize major new transportation systems in Canada an

... See more

By 1883, Gould had become the dominant owner of, or controlling shareholder in, or chief executive of, literally dozens of railroads, some of them only for brief periods of time. The blur of activity sent shock waves of alarm through competitors even as it delighted stock traders, many of whom grew wealthy divining what Gould was up to and followin

... See more

Hill even plowed $25,000 into the faltering New York Times. All across the GN empire, Jim Hill’s private car became a landmark, frequently only a mythical landmark, pulled up on sidings from Fargo to Olympia, Washington—there to dictate policy regarding rail regulation and other pressing issues. He was becoming a legend in his own time, an ogre to

... See more