Original message From John
Decker, Danville, Pennsylvania John (R&LHS Bulletin Board) asks a question about the Logansport, Peoria & Burlington R.R.; ie, who
built the “middle section� of the LP&B between Effner, IL and Peoria?
I am passing his question along to the CB&Q message board, along with my reply.
I am sure there will be corrections and additional comments! I will pass your comments on to the R&LHS Bulletin Board, and John Decker. My response Overview: The Peoria & Oquawka Railroad consisted of two companies: the original Peoria & Oquawka (lines west of Peoria) that eventually linked Peoria with Galesburg, Springfield, Quincy and St. Louis. This line became part of the CB&Q. The second Peoria & Oquawka, was known as the Peoria & Oquawka Eastern Extension Railroad. It completed a line between Effner and Peoria, IL around 1859. The Logansport, Peoria & Burlington Railroad consisted of two companies: lines east of Peoria (east of the Illinois River) and lines west of Peoria. Both of these lines were constructed by the Peoria & Oquawka Railroad In 1860, the LP&B operated 171 miles of line in Illinois, about the distance between Effner, IL and East Burlington, IL (on the Mississippi River) via Peoria. The Logansport, Peoria & Burlington Railroad (lines east) was incorporated on September 12, 1854, by change of name from the Logansport & Pacific Railway, incorporated on May 7, 1853. On February 21, 1861, the Logansport, Peoria & Burlington Railroad purchased the eastern division (lines east of the Illinois River) of the Peoria & Oquawka Railroad. This company became part of the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis (PRR) giving the PRR access to Peoria.
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John Decker's comments
“We are talking here about a presumably 1850s railroad straight west from
Logansport, Ind. to Effner, Ind., then on to Peoria, Ill. The Indiana portion
clearly ended up with the Pennsy, and the state line was, for a long time, the
eastern terminus (with a wye) for Toledo, Peoria & Western.
From
Peoria west, the L. P.& B. seems to have been diverted from its purpose to
reach Burlington, Iowa by the building of the Peoria & Oquawka R.R. which
opened in 1855, going by way of Galesburg. This became part of the Burlington
in the 1860s. We know that the TP&W eventually settled for a connection at
the west end with Santa Fe, but of course only after its Chicago extension was
completed in the late 1880s.
John Stover in his book on railroad expansion in the 1850s states flatly that
the entire 171-mile route from Logansport to Peoria was finished in the 1850s
and became Pennsy. Pennsy did reach Peoria, but by another route.
The question is, who built the middle segment from Peoria to the Indiana line
at Effner? Was it the L.P. & B.? Taber makes no mention of this in his book
on antebellum railroads, though one source states that the middle section was
built by laying track eastward from Peoria completing the task in 1859. That
would have made it eligible to be in Taber's book, but he does not describe it
and it is not on his maps. Evidently Burlington had no interest in acquiring
this section, and I wonder why.
Thanks to anybody who can shed light on this. The history of the Burlington by
Richard C. Overton does not have anything to say about the L.P.& B.�
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ My
research shows: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peoria
& Oquawka Railroad (lines west of Peoria) References: 1.
"Burlington West, a colonization history of the Burlington Railroad"
http://department.monm.edu/history/archive/QUINBY.htm 2.
http://www.oquawka.info/history.html 3.
https://archive.org/stream/cu31924030125623#page/n18/mode/1up 4.
http://www.illinoisancestors.org/knox/railroads/railroads.html The
Peoria & Oquawka resulted from the reorganization, expansion and merger of
the Peoria and the Oquawka Railroads. Although originally chartered to run
between Peoria and Oquawka, on the Mississippi River, the citizens of Oquaka
did not provide the needed financing. Shortly afterward, the citizens of nearby
Burlington, provided the necessary support, resulting in the change in line
terminus to East Burlington, IL. The
Peoria & Oquawka became a key cross-state route, that eventually linked
Peoria with Galesburg*, Springfield, Quincy and St. Louis. General operations
between Galesburg and East Burlington, IL began on March 17, 1855. * Ref 3:
reached Galesburg on March 17, 1855, the completion of the line. On
February 21, 1861, the eastern extension of the line from Peoria to the Indiana
state line was renamed to the Logansport, Peoria & Burlington Railroad.
Then, on
October 20, 1862, and March 8, 1864, at a masters sale, the lines west of the
Illinois River were reincorporated as the Peoria & Burlington
Railroad. This
line was merged into Chicago, Burlington & Quincy on June 24, 1864, giving
the latter access to Burlington, IA, and Quincy, IL. Background
- Monmouth, IL, and the early history of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy
Railroad. In early
1851, a group of prominent Monmouth citizens (Col. J. W. Davidson, A. C.
Harding, Wyatt B. Stapp, and James G. Madden) called a public meeting for February
27 to discuss means of bringing the Peoria and Oquawka Railroad through the
city. The response was sufficiently positive that these men petitioned the
County Court to authorize a special election to provide a 10% subscription of
the $500,000 project to build a railroad between Peoria and the Mississippi
River (the Peoria & Oquawka) which would pass through Monmouth. Later that
year a construction company was formed to lay tracks from Burlington to
Knoxville, but depended on financing raised from stock sales by the Peoria
& Oquawka. The latter planned to sell subscriptions in each of the
communities which would be major stops on the route, but the Peoria backers did
not provide sufficient funds to start on their end of the track, and the
Oquawka citizens contributed nothing. The
Peoria and Oquawka company then changed the route to Burlington, hoping to
raise additional funds with the new routing. The Peoria & Oquawka then
became bankrupt, and the charter was purchased by Abner C. Harding, one of the three
organizers of the original construction company that planned to build the
Peoria & Oquawka (or its extension). By the beginning of 1852, the
line had reached from East Burlington,IL to Kirkwood, but the Peoria end
of the track had yet to be started, as the P&O had ran out of funds after
completing nineteen miles of track. In addition, the communities along
the middle of the route were quarreling--should the line come to Knoxville or
Galesburg--and when the P&O chose Knoxville, Galesburg investors quickly
organized a competing line, the Military Tract Railroad (the Central Military
Tract Railroad, named for an area of Illinois reserved as land grants for
soldiers), to run south to Quincy. This not only drained away potential
investors, but once the Military Tract management joined with the Chicago and
Aurora Railroad, they had created a "Northern Cross" line which
threatened to kill the P&O's hopes for becoming the main line west. Even
worse, the Northern Cross railroad men, sensing the chance for a big kill,
moved in to take over the P&O cheaply once the subscription campaign
faltered. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peoria
& Oquawka Eastern Extension Railroad References: 1.
http://www.r2parks.net/TPW.html 2.
https://ia800407.us.archive.org/19/items/trailstorailssto00corl/trailstorailssto00corl.pdf
(pp 38) The
Peoria & Oquawka resulted from the reorganization and expansion of the
Peoria and the Oquawka Railroads. The Peoria & Oquawka became a key
cross-state route, that eventually linked Peoria with Galesburg, Springfield,
Quincy and St. Louis. The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy had become involved
in providing financial assistance to the line, in order to allow completion,
and was then operated by the CB&Q. General operations between Galesburg and
East Burlington, IL began on March 17, 1855. In 1863, the lines west of
the Illinois River were reincorporated as the Peoria & Burlington Railroad.
The
Peoria & Oquawka Eastern Extension, a separate company, was chartered
and began construction in 1855. This line reached the Indiana State line
at Effner, meeting the Logansport, Peoria & Bulington in 1859. (Ref 1). In
1860, Ref 2 table shows the LP&B having a mileage of 171 miles in Illinois
in 1860: roughly the distance between Effner and Peoria. Google maps shows 197
miles between these points. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Logansport,
Peoria & Burlington Railroad (lines west of Peoria) References: From:
“Corporate history of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company and
affiliated companies (as of date June 30, 1917) pursuant to Interstate Commerce
Commission valuation order no. 20, under act of Congress approved March 1,
1913� 1.
http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924030125623/cu31924030125623_djvu.txt 2.
https://ia800407.us.archive.org/19/items/trailstorailssto00corl/trailstorailssto00corl.pdf
(pp 38) (table shows the LP&B having a mileage of 171 miles in Illinois in
1860). From Ref
1: A
Trust deed, of date September 10, 1853, given by the Peoria and Oquawka
Railroad Company to James T. Soulter and David Hoadley, trustees, covering all
the property of the railroad company west of the Illinois River, foreclosed in
the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois,
the decree being dated July 11, 1862. A
Master's Deed (J. T. Moulton), of date October 21, 1862, conveyed all that
portion of the railroad formerly belonging to the Peoria and Oquawka Railroad
Company (subsequently the Logansport, Peoria and Burlington Railroad Company),
lying west of the Illinois River, to Sidney Bartlett, Nathaniel Thayer and John
W. Brooks. The
Peoria & Burlington Rail Road Company, incorporated March 8, 1864, by
the purchasers under the Master's Deed, of date October 21, 1862, and under
authority of a Special Act, in force June 10,
1863, authorizing the purchasers to form the said company. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Logansport,
Peoria & Burlington Railroad (lines east of Peoria) The
Logansport, Peoria & Burlington Railroad was incorporated on September 12,
1854, by change of name from the Logansport & Pacific Railway, incorporated
on May 7, 1853. On February 21, 1861, the Logansport, Peoria &
Burlington Railroad purchased the eastern division (lines east of the Illinois
River) of the Peoria & Oquawka Railroad. On June 11, 1858, the name
of the Logansport, Peoria & Burlington Railroad was changed to the Toledo,
Logansport & Burlington Railroad. The latter became insolvent, and was
reorganized in December 1860 as the Toledo, Logansport & Burlington
Railway, with a certificate of name change being filed in Indiana on September
25, 1862. On September 10, 1867, the Columbus & Indianapolis Central
Railway, the Union & Logansport Railroad, and the Toledo, Logansport &
Burlington Railway consolidated to form the Columbus & Indiana Central
Railway, having a through line between Columbus, OH to the boundary line of
Indiana and Illinois. On February 11, 1868, the Columbus & Indiana
Central, consolidated with the Chicago & Great Eastern Railway, to form the
Columbus, Chicago & Indiana Central Railway, having a through route from
Columbus, OH to Chicago. Successive mergers resulted in these roads being
acquired by the Pennsylvania Railroad, thus explaining how the Pennsylvania
Railroad came to serve Peoria, IL.
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Posted by: "William S. Husband" <kybillhusb@gmail.com>
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