would. Still, he was not prepared to see an extension built on just any terms. If it could not be constructed with lightly bonded debt and aid voted by the towns it would serve, he preferred not to build it at all. His strenuous lobbying finally persuaded the powers-that-be to extend the line westward by means of a separate company organized for this purpose. Van Horne was appointed vice-president of the Southern Minnesota Extension Company, and his friend and occasional business associate, Jason Easton, president.
Construction of the new line began in February 1878, after extensive surveys had been carried out. Van Horne scrutinized every aspect of the work closely, even the locating and naming of stations. Whenever a Native association still persisted, he incorporated it in that name. One such place was Pipestone, where Native Americans, observing an ancient custom, still assembled once a year to collect red stone for making peace pipes.
The building of the extension involved Van Horne in much more than construction matters. He also had to organize a company to build it, chase funds, and lobby for a charter and for the transfer of the railway’s lapsed land grant to the new company. It would have been much easier to hire a lawyer or a legislator to act as a lobbyist for the company, but, to save money, Van Horne took on all these tasks himself. Immersing himself in railway law and sharpening his powers of persuasion, he plunged into what had previously been a completely foreign world to him — state politics. When legislation of interest to the Southern Minnesota Railroad was debated in the Minnesota legislature, he made frequent trips to the state capital, St. Paul. There, in the state legislature’s smoke-filled committee rooms and crowded corridors, he sought out key politicians and attempted to enlighten them about the Minnesota’s needs and aspirations. The first round of lobbying took place in 1876 and involved an extension of the company’s lapsed land grant. He got what he wanted. Another round of strenuous politicking began in the early months of 1878. This time Van Horne lobbied vigorously to have the Minnesota legislature turn over the railway’s land grant to the newly formed extension company. The ensuing struggle, waged against a background of competing railway interests, soon developed into open warfare. Eventually, however, after much arm-twisting by Van Horne, the Minnesota bill was passed.
During these visits to the Minnesota state capital, Van Horne was forced to hobnob with a variety of lobbyists and other prominent railwaymen of the West. Some of them later described him as a “man of commanding intellect and energy, who knew what he knew for certain,” but who could combine persuasion with diplomacy and tact. However, despite his many political successes, Van Horne was not enamoured of the game of politics. To the end of his life he disliked both politics and the men who practised it.
Attracting settlers was another challenge Van Horne faced. He was shrewd enough to realize that settlers cultivating the soil and creating traffic for the railway were far more important to the long-term interests of the company than the dollars earned from land sales. Consequently, he assigned top priority to attracting good settlers, or, as he phrased it, the “good class of people” then being settled on the Minnesota prairie by the noted prelate John Ireland, coadjutor bishop of St. Paul. Van Horne had been greatly impressed by the idealistic bishop — the founder of a colonization bureau that was busily establishing rural villages and farming communities.
When hordes of settlers and land-hunters began to arrive in the southwestern part of Minnesota, Van Horne fought hard to have his railway reduce the steep prices it was charging for its lands. “It is humiliating, to say the least,” he wrote to Cornelius Gold, “to see hundreds of settlers going west every day and be unable to stop one in a thousand of them.” To attract settlers he devised a scheme in which they received credits for breaking and seeding their land within a specified period of time. Credits acquired in this way could be applied to the first payment due on a piece of land. The scheme proved to be such a powerful sales tool that land sales along the extension multiplied rapidly. Before long, all these new settlements were generating traffic for the Southern Minnesota.
By the spring and summer of 1878, Van Horne was preoccupied with plans for his future. Recognized as one of the ablest railway operators in the country — in the words of one railroading man as “bigger than his job” — it is not surprising that other railways were competing for his talents. In early 1878, for example, the Chicago and Alton Railroad tried to lure him away from the Southern Minnesota, and the latter strove valiantly to keep him. As he tried to evaluate the merits of the rival proposals, Van Horne was plunged into agonies of indecision and fretting.
As usual, when weighing questions of importance he turned for comfort and advice to Addie. In March he told her that it would be in his best interest to accept the Chicago and Alton offer, yet his present employer had proposed that he become both general manager and president and accept a boost in salary. Addie sympathized with his predicament, but, ultimately, she said, Van Horne alone could make the decision. He resolved his quandary by agreeing to stay on as general manager with the Southern Minnesota and to take on the additional office of president later in the year.
There was also the question of Addie’s health. She had been failing for a year or more, no doubt because of the loss of their beloved son, Willie, who died at five years of age (the cause of death is not known). The sudden death of this “bright and lovely little sunbeam” on May 17, 1876, was a terrible blow for both parents, even after the arrival of a second son, Richard Benedict (Bennie), the following May. Van Horne was convinced that his wife’s deteriorating health would improve only if the family moved to a better climate. And so, when he received an invitation to become general manager of the Chicago and Alton, he accepted the offer. The family, except for his sister Mary, who remained at teachers’ college in La Crosse, prepared to move to Chicago. Van Horne did not sever his connection with the Minnesota railway entirely, however, as he kept on as president and as a director. This arrangement allowed him to continue directing the progress of the extension, which eventually terminated in Flandreau, North Dakota.
Bennie Van Horne, Van Horne’s only surviving son. Although very gifted, he failed to realize his potential and to live up to his father’s demanding expectations.
Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada, E000945218.
Van Horne’s years with the Southern Minnesota Railroad gave him the varied experience and the connections he needed to advance his career to the highest levels. Through Peter Myers and Jason Easton he had learned a great deal about railway financing, and in building the extension he had broadened his knowledge not only of construction but also of lobbying and politics. At the same time he had rescued an obscure railway from bankruptcy and transformed it into a paying property. As a result of this major achievement, and his earlier turnaround of the St. Louis, Kansas City & Northern Railroad, he now enjoyed an excellent reputation among his railroading colleagues. It was a reputation to be proud of — and one that stood him in good stead when he took on the new challenges that awaited him.
4
New Challenges and Hobbies
Van Horne was thirty-five years old when he was lured back to the Chicago and Alton in October 1878. When he first joined the railway over fifteen years earlier, it had been as a telegraph operator and a ticket agent. With this most recent appointment, he became the general superintendent of an important, well-established railway.
Given his reputation for innovation in railway operations, news of his appointment struck fear in the hearts of many men at the Chicago and Alton. Once he had taken up his new post, however, conscientious employees found that they had no reason to be alarmed. As one railroading man later summed up the situation, “Everybody thought Van Horne would tear things. Everybody looked for lightning to strike. Even the general manager was disturbed over his appointment. But Van
