Better days; or, A Millionaire of To-morrow

by Thomas Fitch; Anna M. Fitch

“I quite believe you, professor,” said Dr. Eustace. “Certainly in all the world elsewhere there is no race track for locomotives, no place where iron horses are speeded, and purses of gold and diamond badges awarded to the winners.”

“It is an innovation certainly, doctor, but just such a one as might have been expected in Chicago. The people of this city have not yet passed the noblesse oblige period. You know that in all large cities there is liable to come a time when the citizens divide into separate communities, usually with separate interests, and without any general public spirit. In New York, for instance, Madison Square takes no pride in the East River bridge, Avenue A does not care whether the Grant monument shall ever be completed, and the Statue of Liberty on Bedloe’s Island is as strange to many a resident of Harlem as if she were planted on the banks of the Neva. But the people of Chicago, though locally divided into Northsiders, and Southsiders, and Westsiders, are joined in interest for Chicago against the world. Any project that promises glory or profit for the Lake City will cause her citizens to open their pocket books. These Illinois Don Quixotes never tire of sounding the praises of their Dulcinea, and are ever ready to break a lance in her honor.”

“Is not this race,” said Dr. Eustace, “under the auspices of the National Exposition?”

“Not at all,” replied the professor. “As I am informed, a party of speculators leased a thousand acres of land here, ten miles from the city limits. They have, as you see, inclosed it and provided it with the usual buildings, including seats for one hundred thousand spectators. The race course is circular in form, four miles in length, and seven railroad tracks are laid around it. The officers of the leading railroad corporations of the country readily consented to send locomotives and engineers here to compete for the prizes offered, and—you witness the result. This is the third day of the races, and still the interest seems undiminished.”

It was late in the month of July, 1892, and although the World’s Exposition was not yet formally opened, tens of thousands of strangers thronged the hotels of Chicago and added to the gayety of her streets. The great attraction of the day was the locomotive railroad race, and about twenty acres of people, representing all nations, filled the benches and spread over the outer circle of the great four-mile track.

Seven of the largest locomotives in America, selected or constructed for this race, were steaming up and down the tracks, waiting for the signal to range themselves under a white cable, which was stretched diagonally across the race course at such an angle as to equalize the difference of length of inner and outer tracks. Each locomotive was draped with its distinguishing colors, worn also by its attendant engineer and fireman. The favorite engine in the pool rooms was the Chauncey M. Depew, entered by the New York Central Railroad Company.

The furnishings of this engine were of polished silver, with draperies of blue silk, and the engineer and fireman wore shirts and caps of the same color.

The engine which most attracted the admiration of the throng was the Collis P. Huntington, entered by the Southern Pacific Company. All the furnishings as well as the wheels of this locomotive were gilded and burnished for the occasion. The attendants wore shirts and caps of crimson, and the drapery consisted of ropes of crimson roses, the freshness of which, while coiled around smoke stack and boiler, was accounted for by the fact that they were cut from asbestos cloth made and tinted for the purpose.

The directors of the railroad corporations centering in Chicago had readily extended aid and co-operation to the company organized in that city for the construction and conduct of a locomotive race track, for it was conceded that no more instructive school for engineers and firemen could have been devised, and that there was no better field in which to make experiments in machinery, tests of fuel consumption, and economical creation and application of dynamic force. Almost every railroad company in the United States and Canada entered one or more locomotives for the races, which were advertised for the last week of July, 1892, and, notwithstanding the large sums offered for premiums, and the great expense of building and maintaining the race course, the enterprise proved exceedingly profitable to its projectors.

Among the one hundred and fifty thousand spectators of the contest was Professor John Thornton, of Boston, who, ten years before, had been the hardworking principal of the Denver public schools, but who, through the death of an uncle, inherited a fortune of five millions of dollars, and was now one of the solid men and social magnates of the Hub.