Colorado—The Bright Romance of American History

by F. C. Grable

All his personal investments were so wisely made that his life's work went on smoothly to its close in 1897. In Denver, where he made his home to the end of his eighty-three years, his thoughts were always of the City and State of his choice. His wise counsel and untiring devotion has left its imprint upon many of the successful industries of the State, as well as upon the social, moral and æsthetic life of the community. By his untiring devotion and unflagging loyalty to the Union, he placed himself in the class of War Governors in the great struggle of '61 to '65. He was preeminently a business man and possessed of exceptional ability. He was in the Methodist Church the some powerful factor for good and moral uplift, that William E. Dodge of New York was in the Presbyterian Church. In fact, in sterling business integrity and high quality of christian manhood, the finest thing perhaps that could be said of these two men, is that each was the beautiful complement of the other.

George Francis Train.

1863 A child stared a tragedy in the face as he looked wide-eyed from the window of the family home in New Orleans and saw the rude box containing the body of his little sister pitched into the "dead wagon" with like boxes. There were no undertakers: all were dead. No tenderness or sympathy; only haste and roughness. No flowers; just tears. An epidemic of Yellow Fever was raging and the "dead wagons" were rattling through the streets and stopping at the desolate homes everywhere. Each time the child saw one stop at his home, which would have been eight times if he could have counted, there was one less in the household. And at last a big box was carried out, in which they had placed his mother, and little George Francis Train, a child of four, was left alone. He was put on board a Mississippi River Steamer, with his name and destination pinned to his coat, and was sent on his long journey to relatives near Boston. That was eighty-two years ago.

That child, grown to manhood, became one of the picturesque figures in American History. He absorbed an education while working sixteen hours a day as a grocer's clerk. Then by sheer force of will and capability, he took a man's place in his uncle's shipping house in Boston, when he was but sixteen years of age, and in four years became a partner in the firm and was making ten thousand dollars a year. He revolutionized the shipping industry of the world by increasing the capacity of the largest ship then known, of seven hundred tons, to what then seemed an incredible size of two thousand tons. He had a fleet of forty vessels under him, mostly built up by his own energy. Then he went to Liverpool and at the age of twenty was the resident partner of the firm at that point where he doubled the business in a year. He then enlarged his horizon by going to Australia and establishing a similar business from which his commissions were ninety-five thousand dollars the first year.

He was a man with ideas. They used to cut postage stamps apart with scissors; "perforate the paper," he said, and it was done. In London when the Grande Dames stopped their carriages, a footman appeared with a short step ladder to aid them in their descent; "attach a folding step to the carriage" he advised, and it has been in use ever since. He saw a man write something with a lead pencil, then reach into his pocket for a rubber to make an erasure; "fasten the rubber to the pencil," he told them, and the perfected idea is in the hands of everyone to-day. A dozen men were shoveling coal into sacks and carrying it from the wagon; "use an appliance to raise the front end of the wagon and let the coal run out," he suggested, and the idea carried into effect made a company of millionaires. A man spilled some ink as he poured it from a large bottle into a small one; "give the bottle a nose like a cream pitcher," he told them and the idea gave the man who patented it more money than he could ever use. He saw the Indians spearing salmon out of the Columbia River; "can them," he said, and it started a great industry that is still under way. He accompanied the officials of the Northern Pacific Railroad when they were locating the terminus of that system; "end the line here," he told them and Tacoma will stand on that spot forever. He prophesied, that as much of the soil of the East rested upon a rocky base and was intermixed with stone, it would become inert and of decreasing value; while from the western plains so vast in extent, with their great depths of rich soil, would come the supply for the nation, and an ever increasing value to the farms. The prediction has come true. Today, with one-tenth of the population, we are furnishing one-half the supply of the food of the nation.

He was an observing man always and a student. Besides his own native language, the English, he spoke fluently French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. His newspaper articles from all over the world were read everywhere. He was an editor, author, and lecturer, speaking at times to houses that netted him in one instance five thousand dollars. He knew many of the greatest men of his own country: Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Rufus Choate, Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Nathaniel P. Banks—they were all his friends. He met Queen Victoria, the Duke of Wellington, and many more of the great of the earth. Judges, Bishops and Ambassadors were his intimates. He was offered the Presidency of the Australian Government which he declined. He headed the French Commune and when the government troops were ordered to fire on him, he wrapped himself in the Stars and Stripes and dared them to kill an American citizen protected by the American Flag—and they did not shoot. He led a Third Party against two presidential aspirants for the Presidency, Ulysses S. Grant and Horace Greeley, in the campaign of 1872, and was defeated. He was a great traveler and visited nearly every country on the globe. He went around the world in eighty days, which gave rise to the Romance by Jules Verne, that is read in every language. He kept going around the world just to shorten the time. He had a villa at Newport and his annual expenditure for entertainment there was one hundred thousand dollars. Toward the close of his career he lived on three dollars a week, because he had no more, and he claimed that it was the happiest period of his life.

The first street car lines in England, Switzerland and Denmark were built by him. He was the first to suggest similar enterprises for Australia and India. Maria Christina was Queen of Spain, and Salamanca, a banker, was the Rothschild of that country. They backed him for two million dollars that started the building of the Atlantic and Great Western Railway which was followed later by the construction of a railroad to the Adirondacks. The banker Salamanca was descended from the long line of that name for which the Spanish City Salamanca was named that gave us Coronado. On the line of railroad which Salamanca helped to finance, a City is located in New York State named for him.

All these experiences brought Train gradually to the accomplishment of his life's greatest achievement, the building of the Union Pacific Railroad which he began on December 3, 1863, at Omaha, but which was completed by others May 10, 1869, at Ogden. It was the missing link needed in the welding of the West to the East, and in the development of Colorado, a country rich in every natural resource. Later, when the Kansas Pacific was threatening Denver, and planning to build their road elsewhere if a large amount of money was not raised, the citizens of Denver in their dilemma sent for Train. He came, and made one of his characteristic addresses to a crowded house. "God helps them that help themselves," Benjamin Franklin had poor Richard say; Train said, "Build a line of railroad yourselves to connect with the Union Pacific Railroad at Cheyenne or Julesburg," the road that he had projected. And they did the very thing he told them to do. In the course of time, the Kansas Pacific Railroad was also built to Denver.

Erratic, always. Egotistical, very, Crazy, many said he was. It may be that all his life he saw the "dead wagon" at the door, and heard it rattling through the street; early impressions have their effect upon the character of the mind. He was imprisoned fifteen times and said that he never committed a crime in his whole life. He was fearless as a speaker and writer, and much of his trouble was political. A peculiarity of this many-sided man was, that he would never shake hands with any person—be he king or plain man of the people. In retirement he frequented Madison Square in New York where the birds all knew him and would light upon him and feed out of his hands; where the children all loved him and flocked about him, sitting upon his knee while they listened to his wonder tales of every people of every clime; where memories of his brilliant career filled his thoughts as he saw again his bright vision of a coast to coast line, now fully realized—for the glistening sunlight was glinting the rails from the foot of the Statue of Liberty to the sunny calm of the Golden Gate. He was never without a flower in the lapel of his coat. The wearing of the flower in this way by men everywhere originated with him; he introduced the custom into London, Paris and New York, from which cities it spread all over the world. The idea came to him while in Java, that beautiful country of rare flowers and delicate odors.

On a cold stormy day of January, 1903, the end came to a stormy career; the birds hungrily called to him, but he did not come; the children waited for him, and could not understand; a flower that was alive, was pinned to the shroud of its friend who was dead, and they went away together forever and aye.