Editing Northern Pacific Railway (section)

==History==
===Organization===
[[File:NorthernPacificLandGrant.jpg|thumb|right|Map of NPR Land Grant, c1890]]
The 38th [[United States Congress]] chartered the Northern Pacific Railway Company on July 2, 1864, with the goals of connecting the [[Great Lakes]] with [[Puget Sound]] on the northwestern coast of the [[United States]] on the [[Pacific Ocean]], opening vast new lands for farming, ranching, lumbering and mining, and linking the federal territory of Washington and state of Oregon to the rest of the country (plus connecting the [[Great Plains|northern Great Plains]] of central [[Canada]] to the [[Northern United States|northern states of the U.S]]. and especially its [[Midwestern United States|Midwestern]] big cities, manufacturing centers and markets.<ref name=Gamble>{{cite book |last=Lubetkin |first=M. John |title=Jay Cooke's Gamble-The Northern Pacific Railroad, the Sioux and the Panic of 1873 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |location=Norman, OK |pages=32–33 |isbn=978-0-8061-3740-7 |year=2006}}</ref>

The U.S. Congress granted the Northern Pacific Railroad a generous potential bonanza of {{Convert|60|e6acre|sqmi km2}} of land adjacent to the line in exchange for building rail transportation to an undeveloped western territory. [[Josiah Perham]] was elected its first president on December 7, 1864.<ref name=Gamble/> It could not use all the land and in the end took just under two-thirds of the allotted grant of 40 million acres.<ref>{{cite book|author=Carlos A. Schwantes|title=The Pacific Northwest: An Interpretive History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JImlIbueaXcC&pg=PA173|year=1996|publisher=U of Nebraska Press|page=173|isbn=978-0803292284}}</ref>

===Jay Cooke takes control===
For the next six years, backers of the road struggled to find financing. Though [[John Gregory Smith]], succeeded Perham as second president on January 5, 1865, groundbreaking did not take place until February 15, 1870, at Carlton, Minnesota, {{convert|25|mi}} west of [[Duluth, Minnesota|Duluth]] (western port town on [[Lake Superior]] of the [[Great Lakes]]). The backing and promotions of famed [[New York City]] / [[Wall Street]] financier [[Jay Cooke]], in the summer of 1870 brought the first real momentum to the railway company.

Over the course of 1871, the Northern Pacific pushed westward from Minnesota into the [[Dakota Territory]] (present-day state of [[North Dakota]]). Surveyors and construction crews had to maneuver through swamps, bogs, and tamarack forests. The difficult terrain and insufficient funding delayed by six months the construction phase in Minnesota.<ref>{{cite journal | first=John M.| last=Lubetkin| title='Twenty-Six Feet and no Bottom': Constructing the Northern Pacific Railroad| journal=Minnesota History| date=2006| volume=60| issue=1| pages=4–17}}</ref> The N.P. also began building its line north from [[Kalama, Washington|Kalama, Washington Territory]], on the [[Columbia River]] just outside of [[Portland, Oregon]], towards the [[Puget Sound]]. Four small construction locomotive engines were purchased, the ''Minnetonka'', ''Itaska'', ''Ottertail'' and ''St. Cloud'', the first of which was shipped to Kalama by ship all around the continent of [[South America]] and the [[Cape Horn]] to the Pacific Ocean. In Minnesota, the [[Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad]] completed construction of its {{convert|155|mi|adj=on}} line stretching from [[Saint Paul, Minnesota|Saint Paul]] east to [[Lake Superior]] at Duluth in 1870. It was leased to the Northern Pacific line six years later in the [[Centennial Exposition|American Centennial celebration year]] of 1876 and was eventually absorbed by the Northern Pacific. The famed ''North Coast Limited'' was the Northern Pacific's flagship passenger train and the Northern Pacific itself was built along the trail first blazed by the famed [[Lewis and Clark]] expedition first exploring the new [[Louisiana Purchase]] and the further American West in 1804 and 1805.<ref>William R. Kuebler, ''The Vista Dome North Coast Limited: The Story of the Northern Pacific Railway's Famous Domeliner'' (2004).</ref>

The Northern Pacific reached [[Fargo, North Dakota|Fargo, Dakota Territory (now North Dakota)]] on the border between Dakota Territory and Minnesota early in June 1872. The following year, in June 1873, the N.P. reached the shores of the upper [[Missouri River]] at [[Bismarck, North Dakota|Edwinton, Dakota Territory (now the state capital of Bismarck, North Dakota)]]. In the west sector, the N.P. track extended {{convert|25|mi}} north from Kalama. Surveys were carried out in the Dakota Territory protected by 600 troops of the horse cavalry of the [[United States Army]], under command of Civil War hero, General [[Winfield Scott Hancock]], nicknamed "Hancock the Superb," but defeated [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]] candidate in the [[1880 United States presidential election|1880 presidential election]].

Fabricating shops and foundries were established in Brainerd, Minnesota, a town named by the N.P. second President John Gregory Smith for [[Lawrence Brainerd]], the father of his wife Anna Elizabeth Brainerd and a close friend and colleague. It was here further back on the line where the Railway established its first temporary offices and headquarters. A severe stock market crash and financial collapse in the East after 1873, led by the [[Credit Mobilier Scandal]] and the [[Union Pacific Railroad]] stock fraud, caused a nationwide economic recession and financial panic in New York City's Wall Street financial district, stopping further railroad building for twelve years during the latter 1870s and early 1880s.

In 1886, the company restarted and put down {{convert|164|mi}} of main line across the northern Dakotas, with an additional {{convert|45|mi}} from the west in Washington Territory. On November 1, General [[George Washington Cass]] (formerly of the U.S. Army), became the third president of the company. General Cass had been a vice-president and on the board of directors earlier of the [[Pennsylvania Railroad]], one of the major dominant Eastern lines and would lead the Northern Pacific through some of its most difficult times in the later 19th century.

Attacks on survey parties and construction crews as they approached the Yellowstone region by [[Sioux]], [[Cheyenne]], [[Arapaho]], and [[Kiowa]] native warriors in northern Dakota and Minnesota Territories became so prevalent that the company received protection from additional mounted troops in units of the U.S. Army.<ref>{{cite magazine| first=John M.| last=Lubetkin| title='No Fighting is to be Apprehended": Major Eugene Baker, Sitting Bull, and the Northern Pacific Railroad's 1872 Western Yellowstone Surveying Expedition| magazine=Montana: The Magazine of Western History| date=2006| volume=56| issue=2| pages=28–41}}</ref>

===Settlement===
[[File:Northern Pacific RR 1881.jpg|thumb|Preferred Shares of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, stock certificate issued 28 November 1881|left]]
In 1886, the Northern Pacific also opened colonization / emigration offices in [[Europe]] especially the newly unified [[German Empire]] and north to the kingdoms of [[Scandinavia]], with good reliable steamship lines, attracting Nordic farmers with package deals of cheap land and transportation and purchase deals in the similar cold higher latitudes of climate of the north-central [[North America]] continent, but with richer unplowed expansive soil. The success of the N.P. was based on the abundant crops of wheat and other grains already grown and the attraction to settlers of the lower [[Red River Valley]] of the Red River of the North, Minnesota, Missouri and Mississippi Rivers basins along the Minnesota-Dakota border in the decade between 1881 and 1890.<ref>{{cite journal| first=Stanley N.| last=Murray| title=Railroads and the Agricultural Development of the Red River Valley of the North, 1870-1890| journal=Agricultural History| date=Fall 1957| volume=31| issue=4| pages=57–66| jstor=3740486}}</ref>

The Northern Pacific reached Dakota Territory at Fargo in 1872 and began its career as one of the central factors in the economic growth of 
Dakota Territory and later its twin states North and South. The climate, although very cold in the continental interior heartland was still suitable for wheat, which was in high demand in the eastern and Mid-Western rapidly developing industrial cities of the United States and even growing exports overseas to Europe. Most of the settlers were German and Scandinavian immigrants who bought the land cheaply and raised large families. They shipped huge quantities of wheat to Minneapolis, then Milwaukee, Chicago and St. Louis connected by rail. while buying all sorts of farming equipment and home supplies (some ordered and delivered through the beginnings of published mail-order catalogs from the big cities warehouses, to be shipped in by rail.<ref>{{cite journal | first=Hiram M.| last=Drache| title=The Economic Aspects of the Northern Pacific Railroad in North Dakota| journal=North Dakota History| date=1967| volume=34| issue=4| pages=320–372}}</ref>

[[File:The Minnetonka.jpg|thumb|The Minnetonka]]The N.P. used its federal land grants as security to borrow money to build its system.<ref>{{cite journal | first=James B.| last=Hedges| title=The Colonization Work of the Northern Pacific Railroad| journal=Mississippi Valley Historical Review| volume=13| issue=3| date=December 1926| pages=311–342| jstor=1893110| doi=10.2307/1893110}}</ref> The federal government kept every other alternate section of land, and gave it away free to native and immigrant homesteaders / farmers under the [[Homestead Act]] of 1862. At first the railroad sold much of its holdings at low prices to land speculators in order to realize quick cash profits, and also to eliminate sizable annual tax bills. By 1905, the railroad company's land policies changed, after it was judged a costly mistake to have sold much of the land at wholesale prices. With better railroad service and improved more educated and scientific methods of farming and soil conservation in future decades in the special unique conditions on the Great Plains. The Northern Pacific then easily sold what had been heretofore termed "worthless" land directly to farmers at good prices. By 1910 the railroad's holdings in the new state of [[North Dakota]] had been greatly reduced.<ref>{{cite journal | first=Ross R.| last=Controneo| title=Northern Pacific Officials and the Disposition of the Railroad's Land Grant in North Dakota after 1888| journal=North Dakota History| date=1970| volume=37| issue=2| pages=77–103}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| first=Lloyd J.| last=Mercer| title=Railroads and Land Grant Policy: A Study in Government Intervention| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LE_h0jeJEIYC&pg=PA198| year=1982| publisher=Beard Books| pages=198–200| via=Google Books| isbn=9781587981548}} for sales statistics</ref>

===Panic of 1873 and first bankruptcy===
In 1873, Northern Pacific made impressive strides before a terrible stumble. Rails from the east reached the [[Missouri River]] on June 4. After several years of study, [[Tacoma, Washington|Tacoma, Washington Territory]] near the Pacific Coast and Puget Sound for waterborne shipping port facilities was selected as the road's western terminus on July 14, 1873.

For the previous three years the financial house of Jay Cooke and Company in New York City had been throwing money into the construction of the Northern Pacific. As with many western [[transcontinental railroad|transcontinentals]], the staggering costs of building a railroad into a vast wilderness prairie had been drastically underestimated. Cooke had little success in marketing the N.P.R.R. bonds in Europe and overextended his house in meeting overdrafts of the mounting construction costs. Cooke overestimated his managerial skills and failed to appreciate the limits of a banker's ability to be also a promoter, and the danger of freezing his assets in the bonds of the Northern Pacific.<ref>{{cite journal | first=John L.| last=Harnsberger| title=Jay Cooke and the Financing of the Northern Pacific Railroad, 1869-1873| journal=North Dakota Quarterly| date=1969| volume=37| issue=4| pages=5–13}}</ref> Cooke and Company went bankrupt on September 18, 1873. Soon the financial [[Panic of 1873]] engulfed the United States, business and financial community extending to numerous industries beginning an economic depression that was one of the worse in American history prior to the infamous [[Great Depression]] of the 1930s, sixty years into the future. The downturn ruined or nearly paralyzed newer railroads throughout the country.

The Northern Pacific however luckily survived bankruptcy that year, due to austerity measures put in place by President Cass. In fact, working with last-minute loans from Director [[John C. Ainsworth]] of Portland, the Northern Pacific still completed the line north along the Pacific Ocean and U.S. west coast from Kalama to Tacoma, a distance of {{convert|110|mi}}, before the end of 1873. On December 16, the first steam locomotive train arrived in Tacoma. But by the next year in 1874 the company was approaching insolvency.

Northern Pacific slipped into its first [[bankruptcy]] on June 30, 1875. President Cass resigned to become the court-appointed receiver of the company, and [[Charles Barstow Wright]] became its fourth president. [[Frederick Billings]], namesake of future [[Billings, Montana]], formulated a reorganization plan which was put into effect.

Throughout 1874 to 1876, elements of the [[7th Cavalry Regiment (United States)|7th Cavalry Regiment]] of the U.S. Army under the command of Lieutenant Colonel [[George Armstrong Custer]], operating out of [[Fort Abraham Lincoln]] and [[Fort Rice]] in the Dakota Territory, conducted expeditions to protect the railroad survey and construction crews in Dakota and Montana Territories.

===Frederick Billings and the first reorganization===
In 1877, construction resumed in a small way. Northern Pacific pushed a branch line southeast from Tacoma to [[Puyallup, Washington]] and on to the coal fields around [[Wilkeson, Washington]]. Much of the coal was destined for export through Tacoma to [[San Francisco, California]], where it would be thrown into the fireboxes of [[Central Pacific Railroad]]'s [[steam engines]] locomotives.

This small amount of construction was one of the largest projects the company would undertake in the years between 1874 and 1880. That same year the company built a large shop complex at [[Edison, Washington]] (now part of [[Tacoma, Washington metropolitan area|south Tacoma metropolitan area]]). The Edison Shops became the largest on the system for building and repairing freight cars due to the easy access of cheap lumber. The Brainerd Shops to the east remained as the largest locomotive repair facility throughout the steam era. Another shops / foundry site was located at the center mid-way of the mainline in [[Livingston, Montana]], which became the primary diesel engine maintenance facility after 1955. In [[St. Paul, Minnesota]] were the Como Shops, which maintained most of the passenger car fleet, and the Gladstone Shops, which closed in 1915.

On May 24, 1879, [[Frederick H. Billings]] became the fifth president of the company. Billings' tenure would be short but ferocious. Reorganization, bond sales, and improvement in the U.S. economy allowed Northern Pacific to strike out across the upper [[Missouri River]] by letting a contract to build {{convert|100|mi}} of railroad west of the river. The railroad's new-found strength, however, would be seen as a threat in certain quarters.

===Henry Villard and the Last Spike===
[[File:NothernPacificRailway-Yellowstone Brochure 1904.JPG|thumb|left|[[Yellowstone National Park]]'s N.P.R.R.-Yellowstone Park Line brochure, 1904|alt=]]
[[File:Oregon and Transcontinental stock.JPG|right|thumb|[[Oregon and Transcontinental|Oregon and Transcontinental Company]] stock certificate owned by 6th N.P.R.R. president, 1881-1884 [[Henry Villard]].]]
German-born former war correspondent / journalist and later newspaper / magazine publisher [[Henry Villard]] (6th President N.P.R.R. 1881-1884), had raised capital for western railroads in Europe (especially in the recently unified [[German Empire]]), from 1871 to 1873. After returning to New York City in 1874, he invested on behalf of his clients in railroads in [[Oregon]]. Through Villard's work, most of these lines became properties of the European creditors' holding company, the [[Oregon and Transcontinental Company]].

Of the lines held by the Oregon and Transcontinental, the most important was the [[Oregon Railway and Navigation Company]], which ran east from [[Portland, Oregon]] along the left bank of the [[Columbia River]] to a connection with the [[Union Pacific Railroad]]'s [[Oregon Short Line]] at the confluence of the Columbia River and the [[Snake River]] near [[Wallula, Washington]]. The Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines had completed the first trans-continental route 12 years earlier in 1869.

Within a decade of his return, Villard was head of a transportation empire in the [[Pacific Northwest]] that had but one real competitor, the Northern Pacific Railroad. The Northern Pacific's trans-continental route completion threatened the holdings of Villard in the Northwest, and especially in Portland. Portland unfortunately could possibly become a second-class city if the [[Puget Sound]]'s deeper and larger ports at Tacoma and nearby [[Seattle, Washington]], were further developed and connected to the East by rail.

Villard, who had been building a monopoly of river and rail transportation in [[Oregon]] for several years, now launched a daring raid. Using his European connections and a reputation for having "bested" [[Jay Gould]] in a battle for control of the [[Kansas Pacific|Kansas Pacific Railroad]] years before, Villard solicited and raised $8&nbsp;million from his associates. This was his famous "Blind Pool"; Villard's associates were not told what the money would be used for. In this case, he used the funds to purchase control of the Northern Pacific.
[[File:NPcrash2.jpg|thumb|A Northern Pacific train derailment on the S-curve trestle of the [[Coeur d'Alene, Idaho|Coeur d'Alene]] cutoff near [[Mullan, Idaho]] (1903)]]

[[File:Driving the Golden Spike 01.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Amédée Joullin, ''Driving the Golden Spike'', (1903). Oil on canvas painting commemorating the “golden spike” driven uniting the east and west sections completing the Northern Pacific Railroad route after 13 years near [[Gold Creek, Montana]] in 1883]]

Despite a tough fight, Billings and his backers were forced to capitulate; he resigned the presidency June 9, 1881. [[Ashbel H. Barney]], former [[List of Wells Fargo presidents|President of Wells Fargo & Company]] (bankers and famous Western stagecoach line), served briefly as interim caretaker of the railroad from June 19 to September 15, when Villard was elected sixth president by the stockholders. For the next two years, Villard and the Northern Pacific rode the whirlwind.

In 1882, {{convert|360|mi}} of main line and {{convert|368|mi}} of [[branch line]] were completed, bringing totals to {{convert|1347|mi}} and {{convert|731|mi}}, respectively. On October 10, 1882, the line from [[Wadena, Minnesota]], to [[Fergus Falls, Minnesota]], opened for service. The upper [[Missouri River]] was bridged with a million-dollar span on October 21, 1883. Until then, crossing of the Missouri had had to be managed with a ferry boat service for most of the year; in winter, when ice was thick enough, rails were laid across the river itself.

Former [[Union Army]] General [[Herman Haupt]], another veteran of the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], builder then of the wartime [[United States Military Railroad]] lines and the civilian [[Pennsylvania Railroad]], organized the Northern Pacific Beneficial Association in 1881. Inspired by the progressive medical care and insurance program then being introduced in the German Empire in Europe and a forerunner of the modern [[health maintenance organization]], the N.P.B.A. ultimately established a series of four medical hospitals across the N.P.R.R. route system in [[Saint Paul, Minnesota]]; [[Glendive, Montana]]; [[Missoula, Montana]]; and [[Tacoma, Washington]], to care for its railroad employees, retirees, and their families.

On January 15, 1883, the first N.P.R.R. train reached [[Livingston, Montana]], at the eastern foot of the [[Bozeman Pass]]. Livingston, like Brainerd and South Tacoma before it, would grow to encompass a large [[backshop]] handling heavy repairs for the Northern Pacific Railroad equipment. It would also mark the east–west dividing line on the Northern Pacific route system.

Villard pushed hard for the completion of the Northern Pacific in 1883. His crews laid an average of a mile and half ({{Convert|1.5|mi|disp=out}}) of track each day. The track was technically completed on August 22. But to celebrate, and gain national publicity for investment opportunities in his region, Villard chartered four trains from the East and one train from the West to carry about 300 people for an official "Golden Spike" Ceremony at [[Northern Pacific Railroad Completion Site, 1883|Independence Creek]], a few miles east of the station at [[Gold Creek (Montana)|Gold Creek]] in [[Montana Territory]]. No expense was spared, and the list of guests included former President [[Ulysses S. Grant]], only two years before his tragic death from cancer, and Villard's in-laws, the family of famed longtime abolitionist [[William Lloyd Garrison]], who had just died four years earlier. After tearing up a short section of track in anticipation of the ceremony and then laying it back down at the event on September 8, 1883, the ceremonial Last Spike was driven in.<ref>{{cite journal | first=Jan| last=Taylor| title=The Northern Pacific Railroad's Last Spike Excursion| journal=Montana: The Magazine of Western History| date=2010| volume=60| issue=4| pages=16–35}}</ref>

===Direct to the Puget Sound===
[[File:Northern Pacific Railroad switchbacks near the summit of the Cascades, 1887 (TRANSPORT 177).jpg|left|thumb|Early Northern Pacific switchbacks on [[Stampede Pass]]. (1887)]]
[[File:Locomotive at tunnel near Stampede Pass, ca 1888 (MOHAI 6383).jpg|thumb|A Northern Pacific [[4-4-0]] on [[Stampede Pass]]. (1888) ]]
Villard's fall was swifter than his ascendancy. Like Jay Cooke, he was now consumed by the enormous costs of constructing the railroad. Wall Street bears attacked the stock shortly after the Golden Spike, after the realization that the Northern Pacific was a very long road with very little business. Villard himself suffered a nervous breakdown in the days after the driving of the Golden Spike, and he left the presidency of the Northern Pacific in January 1884.

Again, the presidency of the Northern Pacific was handed to a professional railroader, [[Robert Harris (NP)|Robert Harris]], former head of the [[Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad]]. For the next four years, until the return of the Villard group, Harris worked at improving the property and ending its tangled relationship with the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company.

Throughout the mid-1880s, the Northern Pacific pushed to reach Puget Sound directly, rather than by means of a roundabout route that followed the Columbia River. Surveys of the [[Cascade Mountains]], carried out intermittently since the 1870s, began anew. [[Virgil Bogue]], a veteran [[civil engineer]], was sent to explore the Cascades again. On March 19, 1881, he discovered [[Stampede Pass]]. In 1883, [[John W. Sprague]], the head of the new Pacific Division, drove the Golden Spike to mark the beginning of the railroad from what would become [[Kalama, Washington]]. He resigned months later due to impaired health.

In 1884, after the departure of Villard, the Northern Pacific began building toward Stampede Pass from Wallula in the east and the area of Wilkeson in the west. By the end of the year, rails had reached [[Yakima, Washington]] in the east. A {{convert|77|mi|adj=on}} gap remained in 1886.

In January of that year, Nelson Bennett was given a contract to construct a {{convert|9850|ft|mi km|adj=on|sigfig=2}} [[Stampede Tunnel|tunnel under Stampede Pass]]. The contract specified a short amount of time for completion, and a large penalty if the deadline were missed. While crews worked on the tunnel, the railroad built a temporary [[Zig Zag (railway)|switchback]] route across the pass. With numerous timber trestles and grades which approached six&nbsp;percent, the temporary line required two [[Northern Pacific Railway M class|M class]] [[2-10-0]]s—the two largest locomotives in the world (at that time)—to handle a tiny five-car train. On May 3, 1888, crews [[Tunnel hole-through|holed through]] the tunnel, and on May 27 the first train passed through directly to Puget Sound.

===Villard and the Panic of 1893===
Despite this success, the Northern Pacific, like many U.S. roads, was living on borrowed time. From 1887 until 1893, Henry Villard returned to the board of directors. Though offered the presidency, he refused. An associate of Villard dating back to his time on the Kansas Pacific, [[Thomas Fletcher Oakes]], assumed the presidency on September 20, 1888.

In an effort to garner business, Oakes pursued an aggressive policy of branch line expansion. In addition, the Northern Pacific experienced the first competition in the form of [[James Jerome Hill]] and his [[Great Northern Railway (U.S.)|Great Northern Railway]]. The Great Northern, like the Northern Pacific before it, was pushing west from the Twin Cities towards Puget Sound, and would be completed in 1893.

Mismanagement, sparse traffic, and the [[Panic of 1893]] sounded the death knell for the Northern Pacific and Villard's interest in railroading. The company slipped into its second bankruptcy on October 20, 1893. Oakes was named receiver and [[Brayton Ives]], a former chairman of the [[New York Stock Exchange]], became president.

===A Railroad labor dispute===
In 1894, the [[10th Cavalry Regiment (United States)|10th Cavalry Regiment]] of the U.S. Army was involved in protecting property of the Northern Pacific Railroad from striking workers.<ref>{{cite book|last=Schubert|first=Frank N.|title=Black Valor: Buffalo Soldiers and the Medal of Honor, 1870-1898|publisher=Scholarly Resources Inc.|author-link=Frank N. Schubert|page=[https://archive.org/details/blackvalorbuffal00schu/page/107 107]|date=1997|isbn=9780842025867|url=https://archive.org/details/blackvalorbuffal00schu/page/107}}</ref>

===From Villard to Morganization===
[[File:Northern Pacific Railroad map circa 1900.jpg|thumb|right|Map of Northern Pacific's route circa 1900.]]For the next three years, the Villard-Oakes interests and the Ives interest feuded for control of the Northern Pacific. Oakes was eventually forced out as receiver, but not before three separate courts were claiming jurisdiction over the Northern Pacific's bankruptcy. Things came to a head in 1896, when first [[Edward Dean Adams]] was appointed president, then less than two months later, [[Edwin Winter]].

Ultimately, the task of straightening out the muddle of the Northern Pacific was turned over to [[John Pierpont Morgan|J. P. Morgan]]. Morganization of the Northern Pacific, a process which befell many U.S. roads in the wake of the Panic of 1893, was handed to Morgan lieutenant Charles Henry Coster. The new president, beginning September 1, 1897, was [[Charles Sanger Mellen]].<ref>{{cite journal | first=Barry A.| last=Macey| title=Charles Sanger Mellen: Architect of Transportation Monopoly| journal=Historical New Hampshire| date=1971| volume=26| issue=4| pages=2–29}}</ref>

Though James J. Hill had purchased an interest in the Northern Pacific during the troubled days of 1896, Coster and Mellen would advocate, and follow, a staunchly independent line for the Northern Pacific for the next four years. Only the early death of Coster from overwork, and the promotion of Mellen to head the Morgan-controlled [[New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad]] in 1903, would bring the Northern Pacific closer to the orbit of James J. Hill.<ref>{{cite journal | first=Ross R.| last=Cotroneo| title=The Northern Pacific: Years of Difficulty| journal=Kansas Quarterly| date=1970| volume=2| issue=3| pages=69–77}}</ref>

===Hill, Harriman and the Northern Pacific Corner===
[[File:RotaryPlow.jpg|left|thumb|A Northern Pacific rotary plow on the [[Coeur d'Alene, Idaho|Coeur d'Alene]] Cutoff near [[Mullan, Idaho]]. (1903)]]In the late 1880s, the Villard regime, in another one of its costly missteps, attempted to stretch the Northern Pacific from the Twin Cities to the all-important rail hub of [[Chicago, Illinois]]. A costly project was begun in creating a union station and terminal facilities for a Northern Pacific which had yet to arrive.

Rather than build directly down to Chicago, perhaps following the Mississippi River as the [[Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad|Chicago, Burlington and Quincy]] had done, Villard chose to lease the [[Wisconsin Central Railway (1897–1954)|Wisconsin Central]]. Some backers of the Wisconsin Central had long associations with Villard, and an expensive lease was worked out between the two companies which was only undone by the Northern Pacific's second bankruptcy.

The ultimate result was that the Northern Pacific was left without a direct connection to Chicago, the primary interchange point for most of the large U.S. railroads. Fortunately, the Northern Pacific was not alone. [[James J. Hill]], controller of the [[Great Northern Railway (U.S.)|Great Northern Railway]], which was completed between the Twin Cities and Puget Sound in 1893, also lacked a direct connection to Chicago. Hill went looking for a road with an existing route between the Twin Cities and Chicago which could be rolled into his holdings and give him a stable path to that important interchange. At the same time, [[E. H. Harriman]], head of the [[Union Pacific Railroad]], was also looking for a road which could connect his company to Chicago.

The road both Harriman and Hill looked at was the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy. To Harriman, the Burlington was a road which paralleled much of his own and offered tantalizing direct access to Chicago. For Hill as well, there was the possibility of a high-speed link directly with Chicago. Though the Burlington did not parallel the Great Northern or the Northern Pacific, it would give them a powerful railroad in the central West. Harriman was the first to approach the Burlington's aging leader, the irascible [[Charles Elliott Perkins]]. The price for control of the Burlington, as set by Perkins, was $200 a share, more than Harriman was willing to pay. Hill met the price, and control of the Burlington was divided equally at about 48.5&nbsp;percent each between the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific.

Not to be outdone, Harriman now came up with a crafty plan: buy a controlling interest in the Northern Pacific and use its power on the Burlington to place friendly directors upon its board. On May 3, 1901, Harriman began his stock raid which would become known as the Northern Pacific Corner. By the end of the day, he was short just 40,000&nbsp;shares of common stock. Harriman placed an order to cover this, but was overridden by his broker, [[Jacob Schiff]], of [[Kuhn, Loeb & Co.]] Hill, on the other hand, reached the vacationing Morgan in Italy and managed to place an order for 150,000&nbsp;shares of common stock. Though Harriman might be able to control the preferred stock, Hill knew the company bylaws allowed for the holders of the common stock to vote to retire the preferred.

In three days, the Harriman-Hill imbroglio managed to wreak havoc on the stock market. Northern Pacific stock was quoted at $150 a share on May 6 and is reported to have traded as much as $1,000 a share behind the scenes. Harriman and Hill now worked to settle the issue for brokers to avoid panic. Hill, for his part, attempted to avoid future stock raids by placing his holdings in the [[Northern Securities Company]], a move which would be undone by the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] in 1904 under the auspices of the [[Sherman Anti-Trust Act]]. Harriman was not immune either; he was forced to break up his holdings in the [[Union Pacific Railroad]] and the [[Southern Pacific Railroad]] a few years later.

===From Hill to Howard Elliott===
[[File:Northern Pacific Railroad - DPLA - 7d420a037748741b50d661d5d0633a45.jpg|thumb|A giant James J. Hill lifts the track of the Northern Pacific Railroad over his head. Hill had acquired the track in 1901.]]
In 1903, Hill finally got his way with the House of Morgan. [[Howard Elliott (railroad executive)|Howard Elliott]], another veteran of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, became president of the Northern Pacific on October 23. Elliott was a relative of the Burlington's crusty chieftain Charles Elliott Perkins, and more distantly the Burlington's great backer, [[John Murray Forbes]]. He had spent 20 years in the trenches of Midwest railroading, where rebates, pooling, expansion and rate wars had brought ruinous competition. Having seen the effects of having multiple railroads attempt to serve the same destination, he was very much in tune with James J. Hill's philosophy of "community of interest," a loose affiliation or collusion among roads in an attempt to avoid duplicating routes, rate wars, weak finances and ultimately bankruptcies and reorganizations. Elliott would be left to make peace with the Hill-controlled Great Northern; the Harriman-controlled Union Pacific; and, between 1907 and 1909, the last of the northern transcontinentals, the [[Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad]], more commonly known as the Milwaukee Road.

===Into the twentieth century===
[[File:Northern Pacific train on Bozeman Pass, June 1939.jpg|thumb|A Northern Pacific train travels over [[Bozeman Pass]] in June 1939|left]]The Northern Pacific steadily improved after the turn of the century. Together with the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific also gained control of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, gaining important access to Chicago, the central Middle West and [[Texas]], as well as the [[Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway]], an important route through eastern and southern [[Washington (state)|Washington]]. Its physical plant was upgraded continuously, with double tracking in key areas and automatic block signaling along its entire main line. This in turn gave way to centralized traffic control, microwave communications, and radio communications as time progressed.{{citation needed|date = August 2020}}

The Northern Pacific continuously maintained and upgraded its equipment and service. The road helped pioneer the [[4-8-4]] Northern type steam engine and the [[2-8-8-4]] Yellowstone. It was also among the first railroads in the country to [[Dieselisation|dieselize]]—beginning with [[EMD FT|General Motors’ FTs]] in 1944{{Citation needed|date = August 2020}}—albeit among the last to complete dieselization, not doing so until 1960 owing to low cost (albeit low quality) coal reserves in Wyoming.

The Northern Pacific's premier passenger train, the ''[[North Coast Limited]]'', was among the safest and finest in the nation, suffering only one passenger fatality in nearly seventy years of operation.{{citation needed|date = August 2020}}

By 1900, most of the remaining land-grant holdings were located west of Montana, in the "western district". The railroad still hoped to sell this land, both to provide operating funds and to populate the region to provide new markets to sustain the railroad. Nearly all the good farmlands had been sold, leaving large tracts of grazing land or timber. The grazing acreage was poor quality and difficult to sell. However, the timber lands were of high quality; much of these were sold to Frederick [[Weyerhaeuser]].<ref>{{cite journal | first=Ross R.| last=Cotroneo| title=Western Land Marketing by the Northern Pacific Railway| journal=Pacific Historical Review| date=1968| volume=37| issue=3| pages=299–320| jstor=3636865| doi=10.2307/3636865}}</ref>

===Unification of the Hill Lines===
[[File:Northern Pacific Depot in Wallace.jpg|thumb|NP depot at [[Wallace, Idaho]], 2007]]In later years, [[Louis W. Menk]] became president of the Northern Pacific, and then he brought it together with the [[Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad]], the [[Great Northern Railway (U.S.)|Great Northern Railway]], and the [[Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway]] on March 2, 1970, to form the [[Burlington Northern Railroad]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Lennon |first=J |title =Establishing Trails on Rights-of-Way |publisher =[[United States Department of the Interior]] |location =[[Washington, D.C.]] |page =50 }}</ref> The merger was allowed despite a challenge in the Supreme Court, essentially reversing the outcome of the 1904 Northern Securities ruling. A {{cvt|900|mi|km|adj=on|abbr=on}} portion of the former Northern Pacific mainline in Montana was spun off to form the [[Montana Rail Link]]. However, as of January 10, 2022, [[BNSF Railway|BNSF]] terminated its lease of the former Northern Pacific right-of-way to the [[Montana Rail Link|MRL]] which is set to return to the direct management of the [[BNSF Railway|BNSF]].