'' in 1939 with the Great Northern logo above the drivers|307x307px{{Rail freight The very first predecessor railroad to the company was the
St. Paul and Pacific Railroad owned by
William Crooks. He had gone bankrupt running a small line between
St. Paul and
Minneapolis. He named the locomotive he ran for himself and the
William Crooks would be the first locomotive of the Great Northern Railway.
J.J. Hill convinced New York
banker John S. Kennedy,
Norman Kittson (a wealthy fur trader friend),
Donald Smith (a
Hudson's Bay Company executive),
George Stephen (Smith's cousin and president of the
Bank of Montreal), and others to invest $5.5 million in purchasing the railroad. On March 13, 1878, the road's creditors formally signed an agreement transferring their bonds and control of the railroad to J.J. Hill's investment group. On September 18, 1889, Hill changed the name of the
Minneapolis and St. Cloud Railway (a railroad which existed primarily on paper) to the Great Northern Railway. On February 1, 1890, he consolidated his ownership of the StPM&M,
Montana Central Railway, and other rail lines to the Great Northern. The Great Northern had branches that ran north to the
Canada–US border in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana. It also had branches that ran to
Superior, Wisconsin, and
Butte, Montana, connecting with the iron range of Minnesota and copper mines of Montana. In 1898 Hill purchased control of large parts of the Mesabi Iron Range in Minnesota and its rail lines. The Great Northern began large-scale shipment of ore to the steel mills of the Midwest. The railroad's best-known engineer was
John Frank Stevens, who served from 1889 to 1903. Stevens was acclaimed for his 1889 exploration of
Marias Pass in
Montana and determined its practicability for a railroad. Stevens was an efficient administrator with remarkable technical skills and imagination. He discovered
Stevens Pass through the Cascade Mountains, set railroad construction standards in the Mesabi Range, and supervised the construction of the Oregon Trunk Line. He then became the chief engineer of the
Panama Canal. The logo of the railroad, a
Rocky Mountain goat, was based on a goat
William Kenney, one of the railroad's presidents, had used to haul newspapers as a boy. Locomotives and passenger cars were repaired and overhauled at the shops in
St. Paul, Minnesota, while the shops at nearby St. Cloud were dedicated to freight cars beginning in 1890. In 1892, a new shop site was established five miles northeast of
Spokane, Washington in Hillyard (named after James Hill) to serve the western half of the GN system.
Mainline firebox.
Belpaire fireboxes were rare in the US, but the
Pennsylvania and Great Northern both had locomotives featuring them in significant numbers. They were mostly manufactured by or to
Baldwin specifications. (1914) |lefts exiting the
Cascade Tunnel. The mainline began at Saint Paul, Minnesota, heading west along the Mississippi River bluffs, crossing the river to Minneapolis on a massive multi-piered
stone arch bridge just below the
Saint Anthony Falls. The bridge ceased to be used as a railroad bridge in 1978, becoming a pedestrian river crossing with excellent views of the falls and of the lock system. The mainline headed northwest from the Twin Cities, across North Dakota and eastern Montana. The line then crossed the
Rocky Mountains at Marias Pass. It then followed the
Flathead River and then
Kootenai River to
Bonners Ferry, Idaho, south to
Sandpoint, Idaho, west to
Newport, Washington, and then to
Spokane, Washington. The company town and extensive railroad facility of
Hillyard, Washington was named after
James J. Hill and briefly manufactured the R Class 2-8-8-2 around 1927 which was the largest steam locomotive in the world at the time. From there the mainline crossed the
Cascade Mountains through the
Cascade Tunnel under
Stevens Pass, reaching
Seattle, Washington, in 1893, with the driving of the last spike at Scenic, Washington, on January 6, 1893. The Great Northern electrified Steven's Pass and briefly owned the electric
Spokane and Inland Empire Railway. The deadliest avalanche in US history swept two Great Northern trains off the tracks at
Wellington, Washington by the Cascade Tunnel killing 96 people. The mainline west of Marias Pass has been relocated twice. The original route over
Haskell Pass, via
Kalispell and
Marion, Montana, was replaced in 1904 by a more circuitous but flatter route via
Whitefish and
Eureka, joining the Kootenai River at
Rexford, Montana. A further reroute was necessitated by the construction of the
Libby Dam on the Kootenai River in the late 1960s. The
United States Army Corps of Engineers built a new route through the Salish Mountains, including the
Flathead Tunnel, second-longest in the United States, to relocate the tracks away from the Kootenai River. This route opened in 1970. The surviving portions of the older routes (from
Columbia Falls to Kalispell and
Stryker to Eureka), were operated by
Watco as the
Mission Mountain Railroad until April 1, 2020, when BNSF (GN's modern successor) took back control of the Kalispell to Columbia Falls section. The Great Northern mainline crossed the
continental divide through Marias Pass, the lowest crossing of the Rockies south of the Canada–US border. Here, the mainline forms the southern border of
Glacier National Park, which the GN promoted heavily as a tourist attraction. GN constructed stations at East Glacier and West Glacier entries to the park, stone and timber lodges at the entries, and other inns and lodges throughout the Park. Many of the
structures have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places due to unique construction, location, and the beauty of the surrounding regions. In 1931, the GN also developed the "Inside Gateway", a route to California that rivaled the
Southern Pacific Railroad's route between Oregon and California. The GN route was further inland than the SP route and ran south from the
Columbia River in Oregon. The GN connected with the
Western Pacific at
Bieber, California; the Western Pacific connected with the
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe in
Stockton, California, and together the three railroads (GN, WP, and ATSF) competed with Southern Pacific for traffic between California and the
Pacific Northwest. With a terminus at Superior, Wisconsin, the Great Northern was able to provide transportation from the Pacific to the Atlantic by taking advantage of the shorter distance to Duluth from the ocean, as compared to Chicago.
Branch lines in Fraser Valley, British Columbia, Canada Between 1891 and 1917 GNR built a number of railway branch lines across the border with Canada. These lines were built to provide service to the city of New Westminster, Victoria (via ferry connection) and the new city of Vancouver. The first line was built between 1891 and 1893 providing a connection between Seattle and New Westminster. This line crossed at Blaine, passed through Cloverdale and terminated in Brownsville. In 1903 GNR constructed a line running from Cloverdale to Port Guichon (Present day
Ladner, BC). A ferry service from the port provided service to Victoria and Vancouver Island. In 1909 this line was extended from Cloverdale to Huntingdon. Service from Blaine to New Westminster was redirected in 1909 over a new line past White Rock, across Mud Bay, through Annieville and on to Brownsville. After a new railway bridge was completed across the Fraser River from Brownsville to New Westminster the GNR extended its railway line to Vancouver. Between 1910 and 1913 GNR excavated the Grandview Cut to give it access to False Creek and used the resulting dirt to fill in the east end of False Creek. In 1915, on this infill, the GNR opened Union Station, the terminus of its rail line in Vancouver. Its service to Vancouver and Victoria experienced competition from a partnership between Northern Pacific and Canadian Pacific. This competing service terminated at Pacific Station in Downtown Vancouver and from there offered direct steamship service to Victoria, thus offering a superior alternative to both services offered by GNR.
Settlements The Great Northern energetically promoted settlement along its lines in North Dakota and Montana, especially by Germans and Scandinavians from Europe. The Great Northern bought its lands from the federal government it received no land grants and resold them to farmers one by one. It operated agencies in Germany and Scandinavia that promoted its lands, and brought families over at low cost, building special
colonist cars to transport immigrant families. The rapidly increasing settlement in North Dakota's
Red River Valley along the Minnesota border between 1871 and 1890 was a major example of large-scale "bonanza" farming.
Later history with an
SDP45 in the lead. (1970) During World War II, the Army moved its
Military Railway Service (MRS) headquarters to
Fort Snelling, Minnesota. The MRS worked collaboratively with commercial railroading in the U.S. The Great Northern sponsored the 704th Grand Railroad Division. It was the second Grand Division that the Army stood up. The Great Northern also sponsored the 732nd Railroad Operating Battalion (ROB). They were one of two
spearhead ROBs. The 732nd operated in support of the
Patton's 3rd Armored Division crossing into Germany with them. The Officers of the 732nd were all previous employees of the Great Northern. On March 2, 1970, the Great Northern, together with the
Northern Pacific Railway, the
Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad and the
Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway, merged to form the
Burlington Northern Railroad. The BN operated until 1996 when it merged with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to form the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway. == Passenger service ==