"Follow the Flag": A History of the Wabash Railroad Company (review)

Readers may wonder, "Why the Wabash?" It was neither the largest nor the most profitable of American railroads, like the Pennsylvania. It did not conquer the West, like the Union Pacific. It did not go down in flames, like the Penn Central. And it no longer exists, having been absorbed by the Norfolk and Western during the early 1960s. The Wabash was typical of many other mid-sized, well-run railroads. But despite its ordinariness, or perhaps because of it, the Wabash is a surprisingly good railroad for scholarly historical study.

Roger Grant begins the story of the Wabash with the provocatively named Northern Cross, the first railroad to operate in the state of Illinois. Built by the state to link the capital, Springfield, with the Illinois River town of Meredosia, it was less than successful and sold at auction for a considerable loss in 1847. Nonetheless, it was the origin of the Wabash system. The Wabash grew slowly at first, largely by absorbing other carriers. In his second chapter, Grant discusses how the Wabash came under the control of the notorious Jay Gould after the Civil War. While Gould's tenure at the Erie Railroad was marked with a reputation for backroom deals, his time with the Wabash was less controversial and more productive. Grant rejects the robber-baron portrayal of Gould in favor of one that is more sympathetic. Among other things, Gould secured entry for the Wabash into several major Midwestern markets, including Chicago and Omaha. The author is less kind to the next Gould to run the Wabash, Jay's son George, whose extension to Pittsburgh was a failure and resulted in the Wabash falling into bankruptcy.

The lines to Pittsburgh were eventually sold off, and by World War I the Wabash was an essentially complete system serving the growing industrial and agricultural heartland from Kansas City and Omaha through Chicago and St. Louis to Detroit and Toledo. While some business histories would end at this point with but a cursory look at the subsequent years, Grant devotes more than half his pages to the Wabash as a mature and working enterprise. From agricultural development to passenger excursions to an especially interesting section on company hospitals, he examines every aspect of the Wabash and does an admirable job of tying it into the larger stream of American history. Business booms and depressions, strikes and government regulation all affected the Wabash. The challenges of running a railroad during the highly regulated environment after 1920 rate several chapters. Then, the Great Depression precipitated another bankruptcy and ensuing reorganization, just in time for the demands of another wartime environment. The final two chapters examine the postwar Wabash and its fate during the merger mania of the 1960s.

Grant's book is well illustrated, but is by no means a rail-fan pictorial; rather, it is one of the best in the genre of traditional corporate history. For historians of transportation, business, labor, or even medicine, there is much to recommend it. Extensively researched and fully documented, it stands as a model of scholarship. If only we had histories of the several dozen other major U.S. railroads that were as good as this one.