Attracting settlers was another challenge Van Horne faced. He was shrewd enough to realize that settlers cultivating the soil and creating traffic for the railway were far more important to the long-term interests of the company than the dollars earned from land sales. Consequently, he assigned top priority to attracting good settlers, or, as he phrased it, the “good class of people” then being settled on the Minnesota prairie by the noted prelate John Ireland, coadjutor bishop of St. Paul. Van Horne had been greatly impressed by the idealistic bishop — the founder of a colonization bureau that was busily establishing rural villages and farming communities.
When hordes of settlers and land-hunters began to arrive in the southwestern part of Minnesota, Van Horne fought hard to have his railway reduce the steep prices it was charging for its lands. “It is humiliating, to say the least,” he wrote to Cornelius Gold, “to see hundreds of settlers going west every day and be unable to stop one in a thousand of them.” To attract settlers he devised a scheme in which they received credits for breaking and seeding their land within a specified period of time. Credits acquired in this way could be applied to the first payment due on a piece of land. The scheme proved to be such a powerful sales tool that land sales along the extension multiplied rapidly. Before long, all these new settlements were generating traffic for the Southern Minnesota.
By the spring and summer of 1878, Van Horne was preoccupied with plans for his future. Recognized as one of the ablest railway operators in the country — in the words of one railroading man as “bigger than his job” — it is not surprising that other railways were competing for his talents. In early 1878, for example, the Chicago and Alton Railroad tried to lure him away from the Southern Minnesota, and the latter strove valiantly to keep him. As he tried to evaluate the merits of the rival proposals, Van Horne was plunged into agonies of indecision and fretting.
As usual, when weighing questions of importance he turned for comfort and advice to Addie. In March he told her that it would be in his best interest to accept the Chicago and Alton offer, yet his present employer had proposed that he become both general manager and president and accept a boost in salary. Addie sympathized with his predicament, but, ultimately, she said, Van Horne alone could make the decision. He resolved his quandary by agreeing to stay on as general manager with the Southern Minnesota and to take on the additional office of president later in the year.
There was also the question of Addie’s health. She had been failing for a year or more, no doubt because of the loss of their beloved son, Willie, who died at five years of age (the cause of death is not known). The sudden death of this “bright and lovely little sunbeam” on May 17, 1876, was a terrible blow for both parents, even after the arrival of a second son, Richard Benedict (Bennie), the following May. Van Horne was convinced that his wife’s deteriorating health would improve only if the family moved to a better climate. And so, when he received an invitation to become general manager of the Chicago and Alton, he accepted the offer. The family, except for his sister Mary, who remained at teachers’ college in La Crosse, prepared to move to Chicago. Van Horne did not sever his connection with the Minnesota railway entirely, however, as he kept on as president and as a director. This arrangement allowed him to continue directing the progress of the extension, which eventually terminated in Flandreau, North Dakota.
Bennie Van Horne, Van Horne’s only surviving son. Although very gifted, he failed to realize his potential and to live up to his father’s demanding expectations.
Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada, E000945218.
Van Horne’s years with the Southern Minnesota Railroad gave him the varied experience and the connections he needed to advance his career to the highest levels. Through Peter Myers and Jason Easton he had learned a great deal about railway financing, and in building the extension he had broadened his knowledge not only of construction but also of lobbying and politics. At the same time he had rescued an obscure railway from bankruptcy and transformed it into a paying property. As a result of this major achievement, and his earlier turnaround of the St. Louis, Kansas City & Northern Railroad, he now enjoyed an excellent reputation among his railroading colleagues. It was a reputation to be proud of — and one that stood him in good stead when he took on the new challenges that awaited him.
4
New Challenges and Hobbies
Van Horne was thirty-five years old when he was lured back to the Chicago and Alton in October 1878. When he first joined the railway over fifteen years earlier, it had been as a telegraph operator and a ticket agent. With this most recent appointment, he became the general superintendent of an important, well-established railway.
Given his reputation for innovation in railway operations, news of his appointment struck fear in the hearts of many men at the Chicago and Alton. Once he had taken up his new post, however, conscientious employees found that they had no reason to be alarmed. As one railroading man later summed up the situation, “Everybody thought Van Horne would tear things. Everybody looked for lightning to strike. Even the general manager was disturbed over his appointment. But Van Horne went his gait in a characteristic go-ahead style, invariably hitting it right.”
The railway that Van Horne rejoined was a prosperous, efficient company that hauled more coal into Chicago than any other railway. It was also a prime mover of corn, wheat, and livestock from its Kansas City terminal. But to achieve and maintain this position it waged a ceaseless war with other railways for traffic, particularly after the depression of the mid-1870s resulted in decreased freight. With his combative temperament, high energy, and willingness to experiment with new methods, Van Horne was ideally suited to this type of competition. He plunged joyously into the struggle, waging such a successful battle for business that he attracted the attention of the heads of other more important railways.
To attract passengers, Van Horne naturally thought of food — as he had done earlier in his career to keep workers happy. Departing from common practice, he arranged for the railway to own and operate its own dining cars, rather than use those supplied by the celebrated Pullman Car Company. Once the cars arrived, he instructed the Chicago and Alton staff to serve more generous portions than the Pullman people did. Car construction was another interest of Van Horne’s. On his frequent visits to the company’s car shops, Van Horne often passed on new ideas to the designers and builders. If they could not readily grasp what he had in mind, he illustrated his concepts with sketches. When new mail cars were required, he dispatched the Chicago and Alton’s master car builder to Washington to learn from the general superintendent of the United States mail service how best to equip a mail car. In this area, as in all departments, he revealed an obsession with detail and quality. He was lavish in his praise of good work, but he could also be scathing in his denunciation of inferior results and performance. Confronted by a poor performance, he would go to considerable lengths to see that his staff measured up to his expectations.
Although the young dynamo appeared virtually invincible to his fellow railroaders, he was not always successful. On one high-profile occasion involving the travel plans of Rutherford B. Hayes, the U.S. president, he was soundly beaten by a rival railway. After winding up a tour of the West in 1878, Hayes decided that he would travel from Kansas City to his hometown — Fremont, Ohio — via Illinois. His staff asked the Chicago and Alton to furnish a special train for the journey, and the company was only too happy to oblige. It entrusted the arrangements to Van Horne, who quickly assembled the finest cars he could lay his hands on and engaged a renowned Chicago restaurant to provide the meals. To all appearances everything was in order when Van Horne and his New York stockbroker friend George B. Hopkins left Chicago for Kansas City, where the president and his party were to board the train. At about five o’clock the following morning, as this train stood in the Kansas City terminal yards, Van Horne rose, dressed, and went outside for a stroll. Passing the telegraph