Great Northern Railway

The Great Northern Railway was a transcontinental railroad system that extended from St. Paul to Seattle. Among the transcontinental railroads, it was the only one that used no public funding and only a few land grants. As the northernmost of these lines, the railroad spurred immigration and the development of lands along the route, especially in Minnesota.

On September 18, 1889, Minnesota entrepreneur James J. Hill created the Great Northern Railway from the bankrupt St. Paul and Pacific and the Minneapolis and St. Cloud. On February 1, 1890, the Great Northern assumed control of his other railroad companies, among them the Montana Central Railway and the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba.

Hill employed the strategy of purchasing bankrupt companies and revitalizing them until they were profitable. He began at the start of his career by purchasing small shipping companies. After acquiring the St. Paul and Pacific, which had gone bankrupt in the Panic of 1873, Hill expanded the line through trackage rights with the Northern Pacific. It was then renamed the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba in May of 1879.

Hill expanded his nascent railroad network while upgrading existing lines. He built in stages, creating profitable lines first before undertaking further expansion, thus avoiding excessive debt. His companies sold homesteads to immigrants and furnished the trains by which they would reach their new homes. They solicited further immigration by advertising in European newspapers and hiring overseas agents, who sought out immigrants looking for their own farmland.

The railroad reinvested profits into the company to fuel expansion and improve existing infrastructure. Hill brought in industries and strategically placed them along the network. This pattern continued throughout the 1880s as he expanded his empire over Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana. The railroad hauled goods and passengers, encouraged immigration along the route, and helped bring wheat harvests to market at Minneapolis.

The Great Northern was to be a true transcontinental railroad. Beginning in St. Paul and crossing the Mississippi River over the Stone Arch Bridge at Minneapolis, the line extended westward through North Dakota and Montana. The Great Northern built to the north of the Northern Pacific route. It proceeded until the Rocky Mountains, where it used the recently discovered Marias Pass through the continental divide.

The Marias proved to be an easier pass than the one used by the Northern Pacific, as it was the lowest crossing of the Rockies south of Canada. Taking the pass also shortened the overall length of the route. Building continued through Idaho and Washington and reached Seattle in 1893. Unlike other railroads, the Great Northern did not declare bankruptcy. Official completion was at Scenic, Washington, on January 6, 1893.

Along the sparsely populated right of way through Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana, the Great Northern bought land from the federal government. It rarely, however, resorted to land grants, instead selling parcels to newly arrived immigrants—most from Germany and Scandinavia.

The railroad created special “colonist” or “emigrant” cars—passenger cars appointed in Spartan fashion—to inexpensively convey immigrants to their new farmsteads. The railroad advertised Minnesota land, and many immigrants bought plots reclaimed from swamps. The state granted over two million acres of swampland to aid in railroad construction. Some of the larger grants that became part of the Great Northern included lines from St. Paul to Duluth and from St. Cloud to Hinckley.

Hill purchased large portions of real estate in Minnesota's Mesabi Iron Range in 1898. This included mines and railroad lines. The Great Northern controlled many of the shipments of Minnesota ore to the steel mills of the nation. It obtained renown for its Empire Builder passenger train, which operated service to the west coast by way of Glacier National Park. Despite antitrust proceedings that forced Hill to divest from his other railroad interests, the Great Northern weathered economic downturns and proved to be a profitable railroad for most of the twentieth century.

Ironically, the same railroads that Hill was forced to give up merged with the Great Northern in 1970 to form the Burlington Northern. This network merged with another historic railroad, and a considerable portion of the Great Northern now operates as the BNSF Railway. Amtrak continues to offer service on the Empire Builder passenger train.