WEBVTT 1 00:00:21.060 --> 00:00:23.880 There is a wilderness to be conquered. 2 00:00:24.140 --> 00:00:26.280 The Indian knows that wilderness well. 3 00:00:26.280 --> 00:00:31.100 The intricacy of its trails and its ways are a power and his understanding. 4 00:00:31.800 --> 00:00:33.820 He travels far upon them. 5 00:00:38.620 --> 00:00:44.540 In 1673, a group of French voyagers, Father Marquette and Joliet among them, 6 00:00:44.760 --> 00:00:48.140 reached the shore of Lake Michigan near the mouth of the Chicago River. 7 00:00:49.460 --> 00:00:55.280 These are the advanced god of transport, penetrating far into the Indian country. 8 00:00:56.760 --> 00:01:02.520 Heroically facing the unknown and the new, the white man is already pushing the frontier westward. 9 00:01:03.080 --> 00:01:08.420 He is matching his strength with that of the Indian, and the contest across the continent is on. 10 00:01:51.500 --> 00:01:56.260 Long before the stagecoach and the turnpike had ceased to be important factors in national and international competition, 11 00:01:56.260 --> 00:02:00.840 a new and radically different method of transportation appeared. 12 00:02:01.860 --> 00:02:06.000 The use of steam as a propulsive power in transport is at hand. 13 00:02:07.100 --> 00:02:11.120 A brave beginning, English-born Rocket is his name. 14 00:02:11.740 --> 00:02:12.980 Lasting is his fame. 15 00:02:13.900 --> 00:02:15.700 George Stevenson has built him. 16 00:02:16.720 --> 00:02:21.840 Do you think that progress will be swayed by the tea kettle that this man has made? 17 00:02:22.620 --> 00:02:25.580 The Iron Horse? Precisely so. 18 00:02:25.580 --> 00:02:32.640 Soon after the advent of the Rocket, the Camden and Amboy Railroad, and now a part of the Pennsylvania Railroad, 19 00:02:33.040 --> 00:02:39.960 reaching all the long way across New Jersey, imported this remarkable engine, the John Bull. 20 00:02:41.540 --> 00:02:43.460 And this curious engine? 21 00:02:44.180 --> 00:02:51.340 This was the first practical locomotive ever to be built in America, and to go in regular service upon an American railroad. 22 00:03:00.900 --> 00:03:03.820 They called him the best friend of Charleston. 23 00:03:04.640 --> 00:03:12.940 He was built by the West Point Foundry Company in the city of New York in 1829, and sent by sailing ship to Charleston, 24 00:03:13.860 --> 00:03:20.040 there to enter the service of the South Carolina Railroad, later to become part of the Southern Railway System. 25 00:03:31.340 --> 00:03:38.980 This DeWitt Clinton also was built at the West Point Foundry, from Albany to Schenectady. 26 00:03:52.600 --> 00:03:59.560 The year is 1829, and this is the Tom Thumb, invented by Peter Cooper. 27 00:04:00.360 --> 00:04:04.660 Mr. Cooper has made this small engine himself, out of odds and ends. 28 00:04:04.660 --> 00:04:10.920 Rifle barrels make good blues for his boiler. It is an odd contrivance, but it works. 29 00:04:11.860 --> 00:04:14.020 Peter Cooper will show the way. 30 00:04:14.840 --> 00:04:21.460 What is this? Mr. Stokes wages his horse-drawn coach can go faster than the Tom Thumb? 31 00:04:28.440 --> 00:04:30.040 The race is on. 32 00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:37.860 Oh, the gray mare won. 33 00:04:43.640 --> 00:04:50.160 This is the Atlantic, built in 1832. He was the last of the upright boiler engines. 34 00:04:50.920 --> 00:04:57.440 He went to work at once on the Baltimore and Ohio, and he was the first engine ever to enter the city of Washington. 35 00:05:31.800 --> 00:05:34.600 The engine is running. 36 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:34.600 37 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:34.600 38 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:34.600 39 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:34.600 40 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:34.600 41 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:34.600 42 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:34.600 43 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:34.600 44 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:34.600 45 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:34.600 46 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:34.600 47 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:34.600 48 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:34.600 49 00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:04.580 In the early 1840s, Chicago found it difficult to keep its head above the sun. 50 00:06:05.920 --> 00:06:14.120 The smoke brings firemen rushing to the rescue. The eager citizens strive madly to save their town from flames. 51 00:06:23.580 --> 00:06:26.400 Oh, it's not a fire at all. 52 00:06:26.400 --> 00:06:33.800 The smoke the citizens see is from the Baldwin-built locomotive, the Pioneer of the Galena-Chicago Union Railroad. 53 00:06:34.640 --> 00:06:41.720 On November 20, 1848, the Pioneer ran ten miles out to the Des Plaines River and brought in a load of wheat. 54 00:06:42.400 --> 00:06:45.040 Chicago as a railroad center is born. 55 00:06:50.400 --> 00:06:54.540 It is now the middle of the century, 1849. 56 00:06:55.380 --> 00:07:03.940 From the lately acquired Spanish province of California has come the whispering of a single word, gold, that has set the entire land aflame. 57 00:07:04.840 --> 00:07:08.140 No longer is the Missouri the western limit of the nation's growth. 58 00:07:08.140 --> 00:07:17.360 There is a new land far away, close to the rim of the western sea, and this new land is a land of gold. 59 00:07:18.700 --> 00:07:28.520 The westward trek has now begun. A slender rivulet of folks headed straight for the setting sun, a steady torrent has become. 60 00:07:28.520 --> 00:07:43.080 Men, horses, wagons, coaches, in serried ranks, tread westward home and carry not. 61 00:08:07.500 --> 00:08:18.780 The angels cry for me, let me hide my flabby feet. 62 00:08:18.780 --> 00:08:30.940 Let the water under the morn from my loose and stony foes. 63 00:08:30.940 --> 00:08:42.260 See our sweet love down the chute, wave our hearts and wave me through. 64 00:08:55.620 --> 00:09:02.960 Now the year is 1859 and one of the most romantic adventures of transport in America has begun. 65 00:09:02.960 --> 00:09:11.740 Here is a Wells Fargo coach. Hundreds of these coaches traverse thousands of miles across open plain and rugged mountain country. 66 00:09:12.640 --> 00:09:23.300 This is the Pony Express. Night and day, ceaseless, tireless, ten miles to a horse, sixty miles to a rider, ten days St. Joe to Sacramento. 67 00:09:24.780 --> 00:09:30.720 The Wells Fargo coach, with its passengers in gold, starts another lap of its journey. 68 00:09:37.420 --> 00:09:45.780 Not always does the gold get through. The ready gun, the swinging fist, and the fastest horses are the law of the Overland Trail. 69 00:10:05.540 --> 00:10:13.000 On this February day of 1861, Abraham Lincoln departs from his hometown of Springfield, Illinois, 70 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:20.600 to take the highest gift within the power of the American people to bestow. It is an hour of great danger. 71 00:10:22.580 --> 00:10:34.500 No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this party. To this place and to the kindness of these people, I owe everything. 72 00:10:34.500 --> 00:10:47.600 Here I have lived a quarter of a century and have passed from a young man to an old man. Here my children have been born and one is buried. 73 00:10:48.680 --> 00:10:59.720 I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. 74 00:10:59.720 --> 00:11:09.720 Without the assistance of that divine being, whoever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail. 75 00:11:11.440 --> 00:11:22.300 Trusting in him, who can go with me and remain with you and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. 76 00:11:22.300 --> 00:11:32.200 To his care, commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell. 77 00:11:59.340 --> 00:12:10.960 See, Lincoln walks alone. No, not alone. Faith leads and courage is his companion. 78 00:12:25.100 --> 00:12:38.200 Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! 79 00:12:38.200 --> 00:12:52.880 His truth is not dismal. His truth is not dismal. 80 00:12:56.800 --> 00:13:04.100 The wheels might have spun faster and traveled farther, and not the mighty axle of the nation cracked. 81 00:13:04.100 --> 00:13:17.060 Blood was spilled at Bull Run, Fort Sumter, Fort Henry, Shiloh, Antietam, Fredericksburg. 82 00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:22.620 The stench of massacre mingled with immortality at Gettysburg. 83 00:13:22.620 --> 00:13:35.740 Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Kennesaw Mountain, Savannah, Chattanooga, Vicious Creek, Atlanta, and Appalachia. 84 00:13:35.740 --> 00:13:52.360 And then, silent guns, broken men, and amended nation. The wheels turned slowly, sadly. Mr. Lincoln returns. 85 00:13:53.940 --> 00:14:02.780 After these bells, for here it is that life excels or death and reigns triumphal. 86 00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:30.620 As early as 1856, the Rock Island Lions built the first bridge across the mighty Mississippi, opening rail commerce to the west. 87 00:14:30.620 --> 00:14:39.820 Through the prairie lands of the Sioux and the Comanche, the railroad raced westward. Countless thousands worked together to combine the greatness of east and west. 88 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:04.280 This is the day, this the hour, for which the world has waited. 89 00:15:04.280 --> 00:15:27.520 The railroad, made 1869, at Promontory Point on the rim of the Great Salt Lake, from Omaha across the plains of Nebraska and Wyoming, and up over the summits of the Rockies, Dodge and Casement have molded the track of the Union Pacific, while the four giants of California have raced them with their Central Pacific toward this common meeting point. 90 00:15:31.300 --> 00:15:37.620 Forging the last rail link across the continent, Governor Leland Stanford drives the spike of gold. 91 00:15:45.820 --> 00:15:51.240 Now there is a double line of iron rails, all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 92 00:15:51.240 --> 00:16:04.220 Well named this railroad, Union Pacific, brought from human blood against terrific odds, it means indeed a union of east and west which will not be split asunder. 93 00:16:21.400 --> 00:16:30.300 Now from eastern Kansas, the Santa Fe stretches its ribbons of steel south and west beyond the Mesa Verde to the shareville of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. 94 00:16:31.920 --> 00:16:50.780 For those traveling in this land of romance, there is more than improved eating conditions. Serving the passengers of the old Santa Fe line are the famed Hargals, bringing a wealth of beauty, a bit of culture, and a lot of refreshing ideas to the southwestern frontier town. 95 00:17:18.260 --> 00:17:24.340 But there are good and bad factions in this frontier town, and the rivalry is keen. 96 00:17:24.340 --> 00:17:33.420 The southwest is being built by men of fortitude and initiative, whose essential toughness of mind and character is present in their descendants today. 97 00:18:01.920 --> 00:18:11.060 The scene moves to the midwestern northlands, that's the Minnetonka. What the lumberjacks can't carry, the Minnetonka can. 98 00:18:16.220 --> 00:18:24.420 And on rails stretching ever forward, farmers, lumberjacks, immigrants, and pioneers of American industry move in. 99 00:18:27.180 --> 00:18:33.960 This is James J. Hill, empire builder, creator of the Great Northern Railroad System. 100 00:18:42.540 --> 00:18:52.820 It is the heyday of the American farm. As the century draws to a close, the railroads of the midwest become aware of the potentialities of the fertile lands they've been granted. 101 00:18:52.820 --> 00:19:04.020 Among those embarking on elaborate campaigns to attract the immigrants from northwest Europe to these promising farmlands are the Milwaukee Road and the Burlington Lines. 102 00:19:05.260 --> 00:19:20.840 Leaving the farms and villages of their rugged northlands, the peasants come to furl the plains of the upper Mississippi Valley to till the lowlands that border the Red River of the North into a bloom of prosperity their descendants are to enjoy. 103 00:19:20.840 --> 00:19:26.620 These farmers, together with the immigrants, are destined to subdue the wilderness.