Great Northern Railway
GN system map, c. 1918; dotted lines represent nearby railroads.
The Empire Builder traveling through Glacier Park Montana. (1947)
Overview
HeadquartersRailroad and Bank Building
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Reporting markGN
Locale
Dates of operation1889–1970
SuccessorBurlington Northern Railroad
Technical
Track gauge4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
Length8,368 miles (13,467 km)
GN's 4-8-4 S-2 "Northern" class locomotive #2584 and nearby sculpture, U.S.–Canada Friendship in Havre, Montana

The Great Northern Railway (reporting mark GN) was an American Class I railroad. Running from Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Seattle, Washington, it was the creation of 19th-century railroad entrepreneur James J. Hill and was developed from the Saint Paul & Pacific Railroad. The Great Northern's route was the northernmost transcontinental railroad route in the U.S.

In 1970, the Great Northern Railway merged with three other railroads to form the Burlington Northern Railroad, which merged in 1996 with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to form the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway.

History

William Crooks in 1939 with the Great Northern logo above the drivers
Revenue freight traffic, in millions of net ton-miles (incl. FG&S; not incl. PC or MA&CR)
YearTraffic
1925 8,521
1933 5,434
1944 19,583
1960 15,831
1967 17,938
Source: ICC annual reports

The Great Northern was built in stages, slowly creating profitable lines, before extending the road further into undeveloped Western territories. In a series of the earliest public relations campaigns, contests were held to promote interest in the railroad and the ranchlands along its route. Fred J. Adams used promotional incentives such as feed and seed donations to farmers getting started along the line. Contests were all-inclusive, from the largest farm animals to the largest freight carload capacity, and were promoted heavily to immigrants and newcomers from the East.[1]

The very first predecessor railroad to the company was the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad owned by William Crooks. He had gone bankrupt running a small line between St. Paul and Minneapolis. He named the locomotive he ran for himself and the William Crooks would be the first locomotive of the Great Northern Railway. J.J. Hill convinced New York banker John S. Kennedy, Norman Kittson (a wealthy fur trader friend), Donald Smith (a Hudson's Bay Company executive), George Stephen (Smith's cousin and president of the Bank of Montreal), and others to invest $5.5 million in purchasing the railroad.[2] On March 13, 1878, the road's creditors formally signed an agreement transferring their bonds and control of the railroad to J.J. Hill's investment group.[3] On September 18, 1889, Hill changed the name of the Minneapolis and St. Cloud Railway (a railroad which existed primarily on paper, but which held very extensive land grants throughout the Midwest and Pacific Northwest) to the Great Northern Railway. On February 1, 1890, he consolidated his ownership of the StPM&M, Montana Central Railway, and other rail lines to the Great Northern.[4]

The Great Northern had branches that ran north to the Canada–US border in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana. It also had branches that ran to Superior, Wisconsin, and Butte, Montana, connecting with the iron range of Minnesota and copper mines of Montana. In 1898 Hill purchased control of large parts of the Mesabi Iron Range in Minnesota and its rail lines. The Great Northern began large-scale shipment of ore to the steel mills of the Midwest.[5]

The railroad's best-known engineer was John Frank Stevens, who served from 1889 to 1903. Stevens was acclaimed for his 1889 exploration of Marias Pass in Montana and determined its practicability for a railroad. Stevens was an efficient administrator with remarkable technical skills and imagination. He discovered Stevens Pass through the Cascade Mountains, set railroad construction standards in the Mesabi Range, and supervised the construction of the Oregon Trunk Line. He then became the chief engineer of the Panama Canal.[6]

The logo of the railroad, a Rocky Mountain goat, was based on a goat William Kenney, one of the railroad's presidents, had used to haul newspapers as a boy.[7][8][9]

Mainline

A Great Northern H class pacific with a Belpaire firebox. Belpaire fireboxes were rare in the US, but the Pennsylvania and Great Northern both had locomotives featuring them in significant numbers. They were mostly manufactured by or to Baldwin specifications. (1914)
Great Northern boxcabs exiting the Cascade Tunnel.
Great Northern brakeman checks train from caboose.

The mainline began at Saint Paul, Minnesota, heading west along the Mississippi River bluffs, crossing the river to Minneapolis on a massive multi-piered stone arch bridge just below the Saint Anthony Falls. The bridge ceased to be used as a railroad bridge in 1978, becoming a pedestrian river crossing with excellent views of the falls and of the lock system. The mainline headed northwest from the Twin Cities, across North Dakota and eastern Montana. The line then crossed the Rocky Mountains at Marias Pass. It then followed the Flathead River and then Kootenai River to Bonners Ferry, Idaho, south to Sandpoint, Idaho, west to Newport, Washington, and then to Spokane, Washington. The company town and extensive railroad facility of Hillyard, Washington was named after James J. Hill and briefly manufactured the R Class 2-8-8-2 around 1927 which was the largest steam locomotive in the world at the time.[10] From there the mainline crossed the Cascade Mountains through the Cascade Tunnel under Stevens Pass, reaching Seattle, Washington, in 1893, with the driving of the last spike at Scenic, Washington, on January 6, 1893. The Great Northern electrified Steven's Pass and briefly owned the electric Spokane and Inland Empire Railway. The deadliest avalanche in US history swept two Great Northern trains off the tracks at Wellington, Washington by the Cascade Tunnel killing 96 people.

The mainline west of Marias Pass has been relocated twice. The original route over Haskell Pass, via Kalispell and Marion, Montana, was replaced in 1904 by a more circuitous but flatter route via Whitefish and Eureka, joining the Kootenai River at Rexford, Montana. A further reroute was necessitated by the construction of the Libby Dam on the Kootenai River in the late 1960s. The United States Army Corps of Engineers built a new route through the Salish Mountains, including the 7-mile-long (11 km) Flathead Tunnel, second-longest in the United States, to relocate the tracks away from the Kootenai River. This route opened in 1970. The surviving portions of the older routes (from Columbia Falls to Kalispell and Stryker to Eureka), are operated by Watco as the Mission Mountain Railroad.

The Great Northern mainline crossed the continental divide through Marias Pass, the lowest crossing of the Rockies south of the Canada–US border. Here, the mainline forms the southern border of Glacier National Park, which the GN promoted heavily as a tourist attraction. GN constructed stations at East Glacier and West Glacier entries to the park, stone and timber lodges at the entries, and other inns and lodges throughout the Park. Many of the structures have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places due to unique construction, location, and the beauty of the surrounding regions.

In 1931, the GN also developed the "Inside Gateway", a route to California that rivaled the Southern Pacific Railroad's route between Oregon and California. The GN route was further inland than the SP route and ran south from the Columbia River in Oregon. The GN connected with the Western Pacific at Bieber, California; the Western Pacific connected with the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe in Stockton, California, and together the three railroads (GN, WP, and ATSF) competed with Southern Pacific for traffic between California and the Pacific Northwest. With a terminus at Superior, Wisconsin, the Great Northern was able to provide transportation from the Pacific to the Atlantic by taking advantage of the shorter distance to Duluth from the ocean, as compared to Chicago.

A 1909 ad aimed at settlers, from a St. Paul newspaper

Branch lines in Fraser Valley, British Columbia, Canada

Between 1891 and 1917 GNR build a number of railway branch lines across the border with Canada. These lines were built to provide service to the city of New Westminster, Victoria (via ferry connection) and the new city of Vancouver. The first line was built between 1891 and 1893 providing a connection between Seattle and New Westminster. This line crossed at Blaine, passed through Cloverdale and terminated in Brownsville. In 1903 GNR constructed a line running from Cloverdale to Port Guichon (Present day Ladner, BC). A ferry service from the port provided service to Victoria and Vancouver Island. In 1909 this line was extended from Cloverdale to Huntingdon. Service from Blaine to New Westminster was redirected in 1909 over a new line past White Rock, across Mud Bay, through Annieville and on to Brownsville. After a new railway bridge was completed across the Fraser River from Brownsville to New Westminster the GNR extended its railway line to Vancouver. Between 1910 and 1913 GNR excavated the Grandview Cut to give it access to False Creek and used the resulting dirt to fill in the east end of False Creek. In 1915, on this infill, the GNR opened Union Station, the terminus of its rail line in Vancouver. Its service to Vancouver and Victoria experienced competition from a partnership between Northern Pacific and Canadian Pacific. This competing service terminated at Pacific Station in Downtown Vancouver and from there offered direct steamship service to Victoria, thus offering a superior alternative to both services offered by GNR.

Settlements

The Great Northern energetically promoted settlement along its lines in North Dakota and Montana, especially by Germans and Scandinavians from Europe. The Great Northern bought its lands from the federal government – it received no land grants – and resold them to farmers one by one. It operated agencies in Germany and Scandinavia that promoted its lands, and brought families over at low cost, building special colonist cars to transport immigrant families. The rapidly increasing settlement in North Dakota's Red River Valley along the Minnesota border between 1871 and 1890 was a major example of large-scale "bonanza" farming.[11][12][13]

Later history

The Big Sky Blue Empire Builder with an SDP45 in the lead. (1970)[14]

During World War II, the Army moved its Military Railway Service (MRS) headquarters to Fort Snelling, Minnesota. The MRS worked collaboratively with commercial railroading in the U.S. The Great Northern sponsored the 704th Grand Railroad Division. It was the second Grand Division that the Army stood up. The Great Northern also sponsored the 732nd Railroad Operating Battalion (ROB). They were one of two spearhead ROBs. The 732nd operated in support of the Patton's 3rd Armored Division crossing into Germany with them. The Officers of the 732nd were all previous employees of the Great Northern.

On March 2, 1970, the Great Northern, together with the Northern Pacific Railway, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad and the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway, merged to form the Burlington Northern Railroad.[15] The BN operated until 1996 when it merged with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to form the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway.

Passenger service

GN operated various passenger trains, but the Empire Builder was their premier passenger train. It was named in honor of James J. Hill, known as the "Empire Builder." Amtrak still operates the Empire Builder today, running it over the old Great Northern's Northern Transcon north of St. Paul.

Named trains

  • Alexandrian: St. Paul–Fargo
  • Badger Express: St. Paul-Superior/Duluth (later renamed Badger)
  • Cascadian: Seattle–Spokane (1909-1959)
  • Dakotan: St. Paul-Minot
  • Eastern Express: Seattle-St. Paul (1903–1906) (replaced by Fast Mail in 1906)[16]
  • Empire Builder: Chicago-Seattle/Portland (1929–present)
  • Fast Mail No. 27: St. Paul–Seattle (1906–1910) (renamed The Oregonian in 1910)[16]
  • Glacier Park Limited: St. Paul–Seattle (1915-1929) (replaced by Empire Builder in 1929)[16]
  • Gopher: St. Paul-Superior/Duluth
  • Great Northern Express: (1909–1918) Kansas City-Seattle[17][18]
  • International: Seattle-Vancouver, B.C.
  • Oregonian : St. Paul–Seattle (1910–1915) (replaced by Glacier Park Limited in 1915)[16]
  • Oriental Limited : Chicago-St. Paul-Seattle (replaced by Western Star in 1951)
  • Puget Sound Express: St. Paul-Seattle (1903–1906) (replaced by Fast Mail in 1906)[16]
  • Red River Limited: Grand Forks-St. Paul (later renamed Red River)
  • Seattle Express[19]
  • Southeast Express: (1909–1918) Seattle-Kansas City[17][20]
  • Western Star : Chicago-St. Paul-Seattle-Portland
  • Winnipeg Limited: St. Paul-Winnipeg

Rolling stock

In 1951 the company owned 844 locomotives, including 568 steam, 261 diesel-electric and 15 all-electric, as well 822 passenger-train cars and 43.897 freight-train cars.[21]

Paint schemes

The Great Northern had numerous paint scheme variations and color changes over the years, but Rocky the goat was consistently featured.[14]

Preservation

Preserved steam locomotives

Locomotive no.ClassTypeBuiltRetiredCityLocationExtra information
1 - William Crooks14-4-018619/1897Duluth, MinnesotaLake Superior Railroad MuseumIn June 1962, the Great Northern transferred ownership to the Minnesota Historical Society
Was at Saint Paul Union Depot from June 1954 to 1975
1147F-82-8-08/19026/1956Wenatchee, WashingtonLions Locomotive Park
1100 South Wenatchee Avenue		Location also called "Mission Street Park"[22]
1246F-82-8-011/19077/1953Snoqualmie, WashingtonNorthwest Railway MuseumPurchased from Fred Kepner Collection upon his death in 2021[23]
Was stored by Kepner in Merrill, Oregon. Acquired by Northwest Railway Museum in April 2023.
1355H-54-6-2Rebuilt from E-14 1020 5/19247/1955Sioux City, IowaMilwaukee ShopsCompleted cosmetic restoration
2507P-24-8-210/192312/1957Wishram, WashingtonWishram DepotHidden under shelter
2523P-24-8-210/19234/1958Willmar, MinnesotaKandiyohi County Historical Society
2584S-24-8-43/193012/1957Havre, MontanaHavre DepotLargest surviving GN steam locomotive
3059O-12-8-22/191312/1957Williston, North DakotaWilliston Depot

Preserved diesel locomotives

Rails to Trails

In addition to the Stone Arch Bridge, parts of the railway have been turned into pedestrian and bicycle trails. In Minnesota, the Cedar Lake Trail is built in areas that were formerly railroad yards for the Great Northern Railway and the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway. Also in Minnesota, the Dakota Rail Trail is built on 26.5 miles of the railroad right-of-way. In Kalispell Montana there are several sections of rails to trails, one, the farthest west, starts in Kila, MT, and goes to Kalispell Montana. This section of rail way was taken out in the early 1900s. Further west, the Iron Goat Trail in Washington follows the late 19th-century route of the Great Northern Railway through the Cascades and gets its name from the railway's logo.[24][25] The Spokane and Inland Empire Railroad that James J. Hill purchased in 1929 became a bicycle path between Spokane, Wa and Coeur d'Alene, Id. and Spokane, Wa. and Pullman, Wa.

A Great Northern Railway train pauses for the photographer four miles west of Minot in 1914.

Appearances in popular culture:

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Martin (1991), chapter 12.
  2. ↑ Malone (1996), p. 38-41.
  3. ↑ Malone (1996), p. 49.
  4. ↑ Yenne (2005), p. 23.
  5. ↑ Hofsommer (1996).
  6. ↑ Hidy & Hidy (1969).
  7. ↑ The Great Northern Goat. Vol. 10–15. 1939. p. 11.
  8. ↑ Downs, Winfield Scott (1940). Encyclopedia of American Biography. American Historical Company.
  9. ↑ ""Kenney's Goat" Story Recalled". Spokane Daily Chronicle. November 12, 1931. p. 1.
  10. ↑ "GN Steam Locos". www.gngoat.org. Retrieved March 12, 2022.
  11. ↑ Murray (1957), p. 57-66.
  12. ↑ Hickcox (1983), p. 58-67.
  13. ↑ Zeidel (1993), p. 14–23.
  14. 1 2 "GNRHS : GN Paint Schemes". www.gnrhs.org. Retrieved March 12, 2022.
  15. ↑ Lennon, J. Establishing Trails on Rights-of-Way. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of the Interior. p. 50.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 "Glacier Park Limited". Ted's Great Northern Homepage. Archived from the original on March 26, 2012. Retrieved March 6, 2012.
  17. 1 2 "Transcontinental Trains". Ted's Great Northern Homepage. Archived from the original on March 26, 2012. Retrieved March 6, 2012.
  18. ↑ "Great Northern Express". Ted's Great Northern Homepage. Archived from the original on March 26, 2012. Retrieved March 6, 2012.
  19. ↑ "Archives West: Great Northern Railway Company Wellington Disaster records, 1907–1911". nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu. Archived from the original on August 23, 2011. Retrieved May 4, 2018.
  20. ↑ "Three Daily Trains". Great Northern Railway. c. 1912. Archived from the original on May 4, 2018. Retrieved March 6, 2012.
  21. ↑ "Great Northern History". Retrieved September 17, 2022.
  22. ↑ rgusrail.com
  23. ↑ Wrinn, Jim. "Major private collection of steam locomotives is sold to Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad". Trains.com. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
  24. ↑ Andrew Weber; Bryce Stevens (February 1, 2010). 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Seattle: Including Bellevue, Everett, and Tacoma. Menasha Ridge Press. p. 232. ISBN 978-0-89732-812-8. Archived from the original on May 4, 2018.
  25. ↑ Mike McQuaide (2005). Day Hike! Central Cascades: The Best Trails You Can Hike in a Day. Sasquatch Books. p. 30. ISBN 978-1-57061-412-5. Archived from the original on May 4, 2018.
  26. ↑ Rand, Peikoff & Schwartz (1989), p. 92.
  27. ↑ Cusic, Don (2003). It's The Cowboy Way: The Amazing True Adventures of Riders in the Sky. University Press of Kentucky. p. 227. ISBN 0813122848.

References

  • Doyle, Ted. "Great Northern Flyer". Teds' Great Northern Homepage.
  • Hickcox, David H. (1983). "The Impact of the Great Northern Railway on Settlement in Northern Montana, 1880–1920". Railroad History. 148 (Spring 1983): 58–67. JSTOR 43523868.
  • Hidy, Ralph; Hidy, Muriel E. (1969). "John Frank Stevens, Great Northern Engineer" (PDF). Minnesota History. 41 (8): 345–361.
  • Hidy, Ralph W.; Hidy, Muriel E.; Scott, Roy V.; Hofsummer, Don L. (2004) [1988]. The Great Northern Railway: A History. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. ISBN 978-0-816-64429-2. OCLC 54885353.
  • Hofsommer, Don L. (1996). "Ore Docks and Trains: The Great Northern Railway and the Mesabi Range". Railroad History. 174 (Spring 1996): 5–25. JSTOR 43521883.
  • Hofsommer, Don L. "Rivals for California: The Great Northern and the Southern Pacific, 1905-1931." Montana: The Magazine of Western History 38.2 (1988): 58–67.
  • Malone, James P. (1996). James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest. Norman, OK, USA: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0806128603.
  • Martin, Albro (1991). James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest. Minnesota Historical Society Press. ISBN 978-0873512619.
  • Murray, Stanley N. (1957). "Railroads and the Agricultural Development of the Red River Valley of the North, 1870–1890". Agricultural History. 31 (4): 57–66. JSTOR 3740486.
  • Rand, Ayn; Peikoff, Leonard; Schwartz, Peter (1989). The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought. New American Library. ISBN 9780453006347.
  • Sherman, T. Gary (2004). Conquest and Catastrophe: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Great Northern Railway Through Stevens Pass. Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse. ISBN 978-1-4184-9575-6.
  • Sobel, Robert (1974). "Chapter 4: James J. Hill". The Entrepreneurs: Explorations within the American business tradition. Weybright & Talley. ISBN 978-0-679-40064-6.
  • Strauss, John F. (Jr.) (1993). Great Northern Pictorial – Volume 3. La Mirada, California: Four Ways West Publications. ISBN 0-9616874-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ignored ISBN errors (link)
  • Strauss, John F. (Jr.) (1994). Great Northern Pictorial – Volume 4. La Mirada, California: Four Ways West Publications. ISBN 1-885614-01-2.
  • Whitney, F.I. (1894). "Valley, Plain and Peak. Scenes on the line of the Great northern railway". St. Paul, Minnesota: Great Northern Railway Office of the general passenger and ticket agent. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • Wilson, Jeff (2000). Great Northern Railway in the Pacific Northwest (Golden Years of Railroading). Waukesha, Wisconsin: Kalmbach Publishing. ISBN 978-0-89024-420-3.
  • Wood, Charles (1989). Great Northern Railway. Edmonds, Washington: Pacific Fast Mail. ISBN 978-0-915713-19-6.
  • Yenne, Bill (2005). Great Northern Empire Builder. St. Paul, Minnesota: MBI. ISBN 978-0-7603-1847-8.
  • Zeidel, Robert F (1993). "Peopling the Empire: The Great Northern Railroad and the Recruitment of Immigrant Settlers to North Dakota". North Dakota History. 60 (2): 14–23.

Further reading

  • Pyle, Joseph G. "James J. Hill." Minnesota History Bulletin 2#5 1918, pp. 295–323. online
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