The Great Road: The Building of the Baltimore and Ohio the Nation's First Railroad 1828-1853

About this book

This masterful richly illustrated account of the planning and building of the most important and influential early American railroad the Baltimore and Ohio is an essential contribution not only to railyway history but also to the broader history of the development of the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century. There was no precedent for the building of the B&O. The construction of the 380-mile line from Baltimore to the Ohio River over a period of 25 years is an epic story of astute planning and innovative engineering that overcame many formidable obstacles notably the arduous traversing of 200 miles of mountain wilderness. Its successful inauguration provided a spur to internal improvements throughout the United States. Railroads and certainly the B&O epitomized progress not only in the development and extension of the Western frontier but in the revelation that personal travel and the delivery of freight could be dramatically faster better and cheaper. The railroad deeply affected the development of Baltimores port industry and urban geography as well as its financial educational and cultural institutions. George Peabody Enoch Pratt William Walters and Johns Hopkinsthe citys most prominent philanthropistswere involved with the B&O some intimately; the Johns Hopkins University was founded on B&O Railroad stock. The B&O also contributed by aiding in the growth of the states iron and coal industries. The B&O came to be called "the Railroad University of the United States." Its civil engineers formed the core of the railroad engineering profession in America. The companys annual reports during the building of the line were according to the American Railroad Journal in 1835 "a textbook and their road and workshops have been as a lecture room to thousands." Throughout the author highlights the many types of men who were involved in that history: promoters financiers politicians lawyers newspaper editors fixers and bagmen civil engineers inventors and mechanics foremen contractors and feuding Irish laborers who together built the first long-distance general-purpose railroad in the United States. The book is illustrated with 80 photographs and drawings and 5 maps.