Sublime

In this, as in so many other ways, he was without peer, the preeminent builder of the frontier economy of the Northwest. By controlling the transportation structure of the region—a near-monopoly railroad that, at the time of his death, was only beginning to feel the competition of automobiles and public highways—he exercised more sweeping economic

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

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

get carbon from coal,