2 For a summary of the critical role of railroads in American industrialization see pages 79 - 206 in The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.
3 Any scholar of the Burlington is indebted to the comprehensive works of Richard C. Overton. See:
Burlington West: A Colonization History of the Burlington Railroad is a pioneering study of the land department of the Burlington and the railroad's role in developing Iowa and Nebraska. Charles E. Perkins was the key figure in the Land Department's success.
Burlington Route: A History of the Burlington Lines. Overton was the official historian of the Burlington and made extensive use of the railroad's records and archives now in the Newberry Library in Chicago.
4 The Chicago and North Western Railway was completed to Council Bluffs in 1867 while the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad arrived in 1869. Later the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad also built to Omaha.
5 Burlington West. P.401 taken from Burlington and Missouri Railroad in Nebraska Duplicate Record Book. The Burlington created and controlled several subsidiary lines through separate corporations. A key department of the Burlington's success in building west was the Land Department. Its task was two fold; first to organize the sale of the railroad's land and second, to attract settlers from Europe and the Eastern United States. The Land Department had agents in the United Kingdom and Central Europe as well as throughout the United States. A vital part of this effort was the Railroad's Lincoln Land Company whose job it was to sell and develop lands in Nebraska.
6 The Wymore Story. P. 5. This and The High Plains Route, also by Richard C. Kistler, amply cover the history of the Burlington along the Republican River valley. Silas Garber was a key figure in convincing the Webster County settlers to buy the Burlington's bonds.
7 While Red Cloud probably never would have rivaled Kansas City or Lincoln, it might have prospered as did McCook, which became the division point after 1896. At McCook the Burlington employed hundreds of men to service engines in the 30-stall round house and operate the trains while Red Cloud assumed a secondary role with a small ten-stall round house and limited employment. See Mildred Bennett, The World of Willa Cather. Page 242-3. See also Richard C. Kistler. The High Plains Route: a History of the McCook Division of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. David City, NE: South Platte Press, 3rd Edition, 1987. See appendix for summary of Red Cloud rail service.
10 "A Sculptor's Funeral." p. 198.
11 A Death in the Desert. p. 211.
12 Song of the Lark, p. 139-140.
13 Song of the Lark. p. 178-180.
14 Perhaps only mining was more dangerous than 19th century railroading. Train crews depended on the station agents and telegraphers to advise them of opposing trains and meeting points. They, in turn, received their instructions from the division dispatchers. Before George Westinghouse's invention of air brakes and Janney's automatic coupler in the 1880's, many men were killed or maimed each year.
15 The World of Willa Cather. p. 36.
16 A Lost Lady. P. 78, Scholarly Edition. For years the Night Express left Kansas City and St. Joseph, Missouri in the morning and worked mail and express for the small towns along the Republican Valley until it reached Red Cloud. There, after dropping its dining car, it traveled through sparsely settled western Nebraska and eastern Colorado to arrive in Denver by morning.
17 A Lost Lad. p. 84-85, Scholarly Edition.
18 The definitive work on both Silas and Lyra Garber is Lonnie Pierson Dunbier's dissertation in progress. An intensive survey of A Lost Lady and the Garbers.
19 Forbes, who had made his money in the China trade, was an important Boston financier who lead a group of Eastern investors who built and controlled the Burlington Railroad. See John L. Larson, Bond of Enterprise: John Murray Forbes and Western Development in America's Railway Age.
20 It is interesting to note that combination of these three railroads which was thwarted in the early 20th century by the trustbusters in the Northern Securities Case, was ultimately consummated in the creation of the Burlington Northern Railroad in 1970.
21 The Havelock Shops, among the largest on the Burlington opened in 1892 and employed more than 500 men. Today it still serves as a car shop for the Burlington Northern Railroad. See James L. McKee, Havelock: A Photo History and Walking Tour.
22 See Richard C. Overton, Burlington Route: a History of the Burlington Lines. See also Thomas W. Tanner, "The Conscience of a Capitalist: C. E. Perkins and Responsibility", a graduate paper submitted to Richard Overton when he was teaching at the University of Western Ontario. Overton had a graduate class write a number of papers based on the Burlington papers then in his possession. The papers are now part of the large Burlington Collection at the Newberry Library.
23 A Short History of the First National Bank of Lincoln, Nebraska.
24 Lonnie Pierson Dunbier's dissertation documents many such occasions as well as describing Cather's meetings with the Perkins in Lincoln at the home of Mrs. George Harris. Dunbier also mentions a 1900 meeting in Boston of Cather and the daughter, Alice Forbes Perkins Hooper. p. 11-15 passim. Clearly, Cather knew what she was about.
25 Dawes, Charles G., "Bank Wrecking and Salving", The Saturday Evening Post, September 20, 1902.