The Railroad

In 1859, the Hannibal & St. Jo. Railroad, which reaches across our State from Hannibal, on the banks of the Mississippi, to St. Joseph, on the banks of the Missouri, was constructed through our County, and gave our people a direct communication by rail with the Eastern States. Up to that time our merchants had procured their goods by haul hauling them from points on the Missouri river, to which they had been shipped by boat. All shipments of the products of the County were by the same slow methods. Farmers who had a surplus of grain or pork, after hauling it to the river, were compelled to take a mere pittance in return for it. Pork brought but a cent a pound, while grain scarcely paid for the hauling. A good crop glutted the market, and reduced values so as hardly to pay for the gathering. But the completion of the railroad made it possible for our people to compete with other sections in the new markets that were opened up. It also opened up the country to emigrants who came flocking in in crowds. No one agency has contributed more to the prosperity and development of the resources of our County than that railroad. Our farmers, instead of hauling their products thirty or forty miles to a market, where they would receive a price merely nominal, find anxious   buyers at their doors, ready to pay a price but little less than that which the article would bring in the mar markets of Chicago or St. Louis. The towns of Hamilton, Breckenridge and Kidder, with their wealth and merchandise, would not have had an existence but for the railroad.

Crosby Johnson, An Illustrated Historical Atlas of Caldwell County, Missouri.   1876.  Edwards Brothers