Early Years, 1845-1933

The idea for the Rock Island began in June 1845 when James Grant conceived the idea of constructing a railroad to connect the Mississippi River port of Rock Island with the new Illinois & Michigan Canal in LaSalle. The Rock Island and La Salle Railroad Company was charted on February 27, 1847 but work was slow in raising funds.

In 1851, Grant convinced eastern railroad builder John Bloomfield Jervis to help out the Rock Island. He convinced the board to broaden its vision to reach the booming railroad city of Chicago and the name was changed to Chicago and Rock Island Railroad. The first train to operate over the Rock Island was an American 4-4-0 dubbed Rocket, and it completed a run from Chicago to Joliet with six passenger cars on October 10, 1852.

As the Rock Island built west, it had two goals: a connection to the transcontinental railroad in Omaha and building southwest to Kansas City to connect with other Midwest railroad. A bridge was constructed over the Mississippi River in 1856, the first man-made bridge over the Mississippi. This bridge was challenged in court by the steamboats when the Effie Afton ran into the draw span of the Rock Island bridge and burst into flames. Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer for the Rock Island, successfully challenged this in court and protected the future of bridges over navigable waterways.

The Rock Island continued its trek westward and soon added "Pacific" to then end of its name as a final destination goal. A line to Colorado Springs was completed in 1888 and trackage rights to Denver was acquired in 1889. A line southwest across Kansas stretched to Tucumcari by the mid-1890s and a connection was completed with the Southern Pacific, thus completing the Pacific goal.

The mid-1890s were preoccupied with building south through Oklahoma, a brand new developing state coming out from Indian Territory.

A destructive organization known as the Reid-Moore syndicate got hold of the Rock Island in the early 20th Century and attempted to merge it with the Frisco, which depleted all cash reserves and put the railroad in bankruptcy by 1915. However, during this time the railroad also experienced rapid growth, mostly by acquiring small southern railroads.

In 1902, the St. Louis, Kansas City and Gulf became part of the system and the Rock Island finished the goal of building a route between Kansas City and St. Louis. The Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern was also purchased in 1902, adding track in the Iowa area. The Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf was acquired in 1904, which had built from west to Amarillo and East to Arkansas, and a link was completed to the Little Rock and Memphis Railroad.

After turning the railroad over to the US Government during World War I from December 1917 to February 1920, the Rock Island exited bankruptcy for just a few years before it went back in 1933 due to the Great Depression.

Golden Era, 1934-1973

New management was welcomed to the Rock Island during 1934-1935 and John Dow Farrington was hired as the new operations manager. As the railroad began to raise capital for reconstruction and renewal, a new motto was adopted: "The Road of Planned Progress... Geared to the Nation's Future."

Farrington introduced the concept of new streamlined trains, along with several other railroads, in 1936. The Rock Island's elite passenger fleet were called "Rockets," after the first steam locomotive back in 1852. Among them were the Rocky Mountain Rocket, a Chicago to Denver and Colorado Springs that was split into two trains to serve both mountain cities. The Golden State was another popular streamliner, which was run in cooperation with the Southern Pacific between Chicago and Los Angeles. The Twin Star Rocket, running between Minneapolis-St. Paul and Houston, served the Lone Star state and the North Star state and was one of the more successful trains up until the end of passenger service.

Among capital rebuilds along the line, the new bridge across the Cimmaron River in southwestern Kansas, dubbed Samson of the Cimmaron, was completed in 1936. In the late 1940s, yards were rebuilt at Armourdale (Kansas City) and Silvis (Rock Island) to increase capacity for fast freights.

Another major project at this time was transitioning from steam-powered locomotives to diesel, which was completed in 1953. Unfortunately, this also meant that the Rock Island acquired a lot of odd early diesels that were yet to be proven.

During the 1960s, the Rock Island's management sought to include the railroad in a merger to increase its earnings by reducing duplication of services and competition with other railroads. Specifically, the railroad studies merger with the Milwaukee Road and Southern Pacific before deciding to forge ahead with a merger with the Union Pacific while selling its southern properties to Southern Pacific. As the Interstate Commerce Commission thought about this request, a 10-year process, the railroad's physical plant declined and another bankruptcy was almost certain.

Modern Age, 1974-Present

As the Rock Island was faced with yet another bankruptcy reorganization, investors were more interested in receiving dividends and liquidation of the railroad was almost certain. However, former FRA administrator John Ingram successfully turned the company around, which began to turn a profit again in 1983. Part of the success was help from energy company Santa Fe Pacific Pipeline, Co, which bought a large amount of stock from Rock Island and began to invest heavily in its physical plant. Additionally, a strike in 1980 led Rock Island to abandon the union workforce, which provided savings in labor while making it possible to hire workers at better wages.

In 1984, a new president was hired from the Soo Line, Nathan Muir. Muir introduced alliances with the Southern Pacific, Canadian Pacific, and the New York Central System in order to increase bridge traffic and on-line industries. For the first time in the Rock Island's history, complete standards for color schemes and logo placing on rolling stock and corporate stationery were adopted, reinforcing the new, bold schemes chosen by Ingram.

In the late 1980s, Muir worked out a deal with the SP and the BN by selling the BN its share in the track from Dallas to Houston in exchange for trackage rights into the Powder River Basin. Then Rock Island worked out trackage rights with the SP between Fort Worth and Houston. Additionally, Rock Island began working on a new shortcut between Phoenix and Tucumcari, which reduced crew times and provided a better interchange with SP.

After SP's acquisition by Rio Grande in 1988, the Rock Island began to move for its own takeover of the new transportation company. By 1994, merger talks were underway and the deal was formerly adopted by both railroads and the ICC in 1996. Robert Krebs of the Southern Pacific was the new president and a new heritage color scheme was adopted that would consider both railroads.

As the new millennium got underway, the reborn Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific system is one to marvel at as it continues to reduce transit times, increase capacity, and improve customer satisfaction.

Rock Island Presidents

1850-1851             James W. Grant
1851-1854             John Bloomfield Jervis
1854-1863             Henry Farnam
1863-1866             Charles W. Durant
1866-1877             John F. Tracy
1877-1883             Hugh Riddle
1883-1898             Ransom Reed Cable
1898-1901             Warren G. Purdy
1901-1904             William Bateman Leeds
1904-1909             Benjamin L. Winchell
1909-1915             Henry U. Mudge
1915-1917             Jacob McGavock
1917-1933             James E. Gorman
1933-1948             Joseph B. Fleming
1948-1956             John Dow Farrington
1956-1961             Downing B. Jenks
1961-1964             R. Ellis Johnson
1965-1970             Jervis Langdon, Jr.
1970-1974             William J. Dixon
1974-1984             John W. Ingram
1984-1996             Nathan D. Muir
1996-2004             Robert D. Krebs
2004-pres             Daniel Ocean