This company up to August, 1884, operated its own road and also leased and operated the Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley road, as the same was from time to time extended. The earnings of the railroad were never sufficient to pay the interest on the first mortgage bonds. The avails of the two land grants and the proceeds of the sales of the town lots along the line up to 1875 (when the remaining land assets were sold to the Missouri Valley Land Company) were used to make up the deficiency. After these assets were exhausted the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River, and Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska Railroad companies, through loans and other methods of assistance, made up the deficit until the sale of all of these roads in 1884.
In 1880 the Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska, and the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River companies by purchase from the individual stockholders acquired over ninety per cent of the capital stock of the Sioux City Company. This stock was in the treasury of these railroads at the time of their purchase by the Chicago and North-Western Railway Company in 1884. Through and under that purchase the Chicago and North-Western Railway Company became the controlling owner of the Sioux City and Pacific and moved its general and operating offices away from Cedar Rapids.
John I. Blair was the first president of the Sioux City and Pacific Railroad Company and was succeeded by Horace Williams in 1871. Mr. Williams was president until the fall of 1877, when he resigned and was succeeded by Oliver Ames. Mr. Ames remained president until the control of the railroad passed into the Chicago and North-Western Railway Company.
THE IOWA FALLS AND SIOUX CITY RAILROAD COMPANY
In the Iowa Land Bill of 1856 a grant was made to aid the construction of a line of railroad from Dubuque to Sioux City on the same terms as fixed for the other three trunk lines across the state, viz: a grant of every odd numbered section within six miles on either side of the railroad, and where such odd numbered sections had already been disposed of by the United States, the railroads were authorized to select an equal number of acres from the odd numbered sections within fifteen miles of the line of the railroad. This grant was given over by the state of Iowa to the Dubuque and Pacific Railroad Company, which company began the work of construction but afterwards failed and was reorganized as the Dubuque and Sioux City Railroad Company. This last named company continued from time to time to extend the line westwardly, so that in 1867 it was completed and in operation to Iowa Falls.
Considerable right-of-way had been acquired between Iowa Falls and Fort Dodge and the grading already commenced when a sale and transfer of the right-of-way, the uncompleted work and the portion of the land grant belonging to the line west of Iowa Falls, was made to John I. Blair and his associates. The Iowa Falls and Sioux City Railroad Company was organized on October 1, 1867, and on January 7, 1868, by a contract of that date, took over from the Dubuque and Sioux City Company all the right-of-way west of Iowa Falls and the work already done, also the proportion of the land grant inuring to the line west of Iowa Falls and all of the rights and franchises of the Dubuque & Sioux City Company pertaining to that portion of the line.
Prior to this date, viz: on September 13, 1867, the Dubuque and Sioux City Railroad Company leased to the Illinois Central Railroad Company the portion of its road already constructed to Iowa Falls and also the line to be thereafter built from Iowa Falls to Sioux City. This lease was for twenty years or in perpetuity at the option of the Illinois Central Railroad Company. The legislature of the state of Iowa on April 7, 1868, passed an act ratifying the said sale by the Dubuque and Sioux City Company and vesting the land grant in the Iowa Falls Company.
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, CENTRAL CITY