Editing Northern Pacific Railway (section)

===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.