The family was even larger now than in 1867, when it first came together in Bloomington. The following year William and Addie welcomed their first-born child, Adaline, whom they affectionately called Little Addie. In later years, this devoted daughter would grow to more than six feet in height and would resemble her father in girth. And, like him, she would develop an excellent head for business, a love of art, and a passion for collecting things. But she was only an infant when the family arrived in Alton, a hilly river town that sits on limestone bluffs overlooking the meandering Mississippi River, some twenty miles north of St. Louis, Missouri. When the Van Hornes moved there, the town had stately homes on lovely, wide, tree-shaded streets and was quickly attracting heavy industry, thanks to its excellent railway facilities and Mississippi River location.
Van Horne had already bought a ten-room brick house on a “pretty street” that enjoyed a spectacular view of the city and of the river for miles around. He wrote to Addie that it was a little larger than the family required, but he was sure it would please her. It certainly suited him because he was developing a taste for large residences. In fact, in later life he would confess that he liked his homes “fat and bulgy like [himself].”
Van Horne’s new responsibilities at the Chicago and Alton Railroad included the day-to-day movement of all passengers and freight over the southern division, the discipline and conduct of its employees, the hiring of agents, and the maintenance of the division’s structures and equipment. These duties presented a daunting challenge for a young man who had just turned twenty-six. He relished his new job, however, because not only did it broaden his railway experience, but it also placed him on the direct line of authority from Timothy Blackstone, a former railway engineer turned astute businessman who was now the company president. As an assistant superintendent, Van Horne reported to the superintendent, who, in turn, reported to Blackstone. Blackstone had been promoted to the presidency only three months after being appointed a director in 1864. At the time, the Chicago and Alton was in poor shape. But he used his managerial expertise to turn the railway’s fortunes around and pave the way for the Chicago and Alton to become one of the most profitable of American railways.
Closer to home, in Alton, Van Horne came under the close observation of John Mitchell, a prominent western railroading man and a director of the Chicago and Alton. Given Van Horne’s driving ambition and talents, he would have advanced rapidly up the railway hierarchy, but his progress was aided and abetted in no small part by the interest that Blackstone and Mitchell took in his career.
In 1870, impressed by Van Horne’s enthusiasm, industry, and administrative skills, the company promoted him to its headquarters in Chicago. There he became an assistant superintendent in charge of the movement of passengers and freight over the entire Chicago and Alton system. In this new position he would strive to beat all the competition by stressing efficiency and streamlining operations as much as possible.
Van Horne was no doubt delighted to be back in Chicago, a lake port with a population of some three hundred thousand people and railway links to both coasts. Situated at the mouth of the Chicago River at the southwest corner of Lake Michigan, it had grown from its humble beginnings in 1830 into a vital transshipment centre for grain, livestock, and lumber from the Midwest. When Van Horne returned to this vibrant, raw-boned city in 1870, it boasted factories, grain elevators, wholesale houses, the sprawling Union Stock Yards, and even a few private libraries and the Chicago Academy of Design. But Chicago, like so many other frontier towns, was also awash in gambling establishments, saloons, and houses of prostitution. And worse, it was crowded with wooden structures. Two-thirds of its buildings were made of wood, many of them cheaply constructed. The city’s wooden buildings, wooden sidewalks, wood-paved streets, and wooden bridges all created the ideal conditions for a major fire.
On the evening of October 8, 1871, following an exceptionally dry summer, a fire of unknown origin broke out in the city. It was contained, but the next night another fire erupted about a mile and a half southwest of the city centre. This conflagration was not contained, and it quickly spread to neighbouring buildings. Lashed by a strong southwest wind, it ripped through dry wooden shanties and then crossed the Chicago River to the city’s south side. From there, it tore like a tornado through the business district to the northeast, demolishing everything in its path.
When this second fire began around nine o’clock on a Sunday night, Addie Van Horne was recovering from delivering their second child, William (Willie), born twenty-four hours earlier. Van Horne was at home, celebrating the arrival of a son and fretting about his wife’s condition, when he learned that the fire was rapidly approaching the Union Depot. Despite concerns about his family’s fate, he set off immediately to rescue what Chicago and Alton equipment he could.
After hurrying to the freight depot, located in Chicago’s West Division, Van Horne arranged with the few employees still around to clear the company’s sheds. Most of the rolling stock had already been removed for safety reasons, but he obtained a Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul shunting engine and several flat cars to transport any remaining freight that could be rescued.
He then circulated among the crowds of people on the Jackson Street Bridge, offering $5 an hour to any man who would help him to load freight onto the flat cars. Many accepted the offer, but before long they would leave the station to watch the fire’s progress. Between attempting to keep his recruits at work and rushing out to waylay more help, Van Horne was almost beside himself, but he eventually succeeded in moving the freight to a safe location five miles away. When he set out to pay the workers who had stayed on the job, he could not find them — they had evaporated, never to return for their money. Satisfied that there was nothing more he could do to protect the Chicago and Alton’s property, he finally set off for home.
To reach his house in Chicago’s South Division, Van Horne had to make his way through a city that appeared to be an inferno of blazing buildings and sidewalks. Smoke, sparks, and flying pieces of burnt lumber, shingles, and roofing were everywhere. So were fear-crazed humans and beasts. He navigated through throngs of people, their faces blackened and blood stained, all trying to escape with the few precious possessions they had managed to save. The streets were an obstacle course of squealing rats smoked from their holes and desperate horses stampeding through the city, most having broken away from their drivers or escaped from city stables. It was a trip he would never forget.
When he finally arrived home, Van Horne was blackened from head to foot, but safe. Addie and the rest of the family had also been spared. He immediately gathered up some bedding and clothes and, assisted by his mother, loaded them onto a grocer’s wagon he commandeered and dispatched it to the shivering refugees camped in a nearby park.
Soon after the Chicago fire, Van Horne accepted an offer from the Chicago and Alton to manage one of its smaller subsidiaries, the struggling St. Louis, Kansas City & Northern Railroad. He became superintendent of the five-hundred-and-eighty-one-mile-long road on July 15, 1872, at an annual salary of $5,000. At the young age of twenty-nine he had realized his dream of becoming a railway superintendent — perhaps the youngest railway superintendent in the world.
For the next two years, St. Louis, Missouri — Chicago’s archrival in the Midwest — became the family home. A cosmopolitan community and a commercial metropolis, St. Louis had been the leading city in the region before the Civil War. With the advent of hostilities and the cessation of Mississippi River traffic from the South, however, it lost ground to Chicago. By the time the Van Hornes took up residence in the summer of 1872, though, the city boasted a population of more than three hundred thousand and was expanding rapidly in all directions. It was also experiencing a golden age that would last until the turn of the century.
In what had become an established practice, Van Horne went ahead of the family to scout out a new home. He settled on an elegant new house in a “very good neighbourhood,” with ten rooms, two storeys, and a mansard roof. It was, he reported, “as good as any in the city.”
House hunting, of course, was only a diversion. Most of the time Van Horne was preoccupied with settling into his new job. He wrote to Addie, “I leave early tomorrow morning by special train for a trip over the line with the genl frt. agent, chief engineer & asst.