The was a railway that operated in the north-central region of the
United States . The railroad served a large area, including extensive trackage in the states of
Idaho ,
Minnesota ,
Montana ,
North Dakota ,
Oregon ,
Washington and
Wisconsin . The company was headquartered first in
Brainerd, Minnesota , then in
St. Paul, Minnesota .
The Northern Pacific was chartered on
July 2 1864 as the first northern transcontinental railroad in the United States. It was granted some 47,000,000 acres (190,000 km&
2) of land in exchange for building rail transportation to an undeveloped territory.
Josiah Perham (for whom
Perham, Minnesota is named) was elected its first president on
December 7 1864 .
For the next six years, backers of the road struggled to find financing. Though
John Gregory Smith succeeded Perham as president on
January 5 1866 , groundbreaking did not take place until
February 15 1870 , at Thompson Junction, Minnesota, 25 miles (40 km) west of
Duluth, Minnesota . The backing and promotions of famed
Civil War financier
Jay Cooke in the summer of 1870 brought the first real momentum to the company.
Over the course of
1870 , the Northern Pacific pushed westward from Minnesota into present-day
North Dakota . It also began reaching from
Kalama, Washington Territory, on the
Columbia River outside of
Portland, Oregon , towards
Puget Sound . Four small construction engines were purchased, the ''Minnetonka'', ''Itaska'', ''Ottertail'' and ''St. Cloud'', the first of which was shipped to Kalama by
Ship around
Cape Horn . In Minnesota, the
Lake Superior And Mississippi Railroad completed construction of its 155 mile (250 km) line stretching from
St. Paul, Minnesota , to
Lake Superior at Duluth in 1870. It was leased to the Northern Pacific the following year, and was eventually absorbed by the Northern Pacific.
In
1871 , Northern Pacific completed some 230 miles (370 km) of railroad on the east end of its system, reaching out to
Moorhead, Minnesota , on the North Dakota border. In the west, the track extended 25 miles north from Kalama. Surveys were carried out in North Dakota protected by 600 troops from General
Winfield Scott Hancock . Headquarters and shops were established in
Brainerd, Minnesota , a town named for the President John Gregory Smith's wife Anna Elizabeth Brainerd.
In
1872 , the company put down 164 miles (264 km) of main line across North Dakota, with an additional 45 miles (72 km) in Washington. On
November 1 , General
George Washington Cass became the third president of the company. Cass had been a vice-president and director of the
Pennsylvania Railroad , and would lead the Northern Pacific through some of its most difficult times. Attacks on survey parties and construction crews building into Native American homelands in North Dakota became so prevalent the company appealed for Army protection from
President Ulysses S. Grant . In 1872 the Northern Pacific also opened colonization offices in
Europe , seeking to attract settlers to the sparsely populated and undeveloped region it served. Survey parties accompanied by Federal troops, railroad construction, permanent settlement and development, along with the discovery of
Gold in nearby
South Dakota , all served as a backdrop leading up to the Battle of the
Little Bighorn and the defeat of General
George Armstrong Custer in
1876 .
In
1873 , Northern Pacific made impressive strides before a terrible stumble. Rails from the east reached the
Missouri River on
June 4 . After several years of study,
Tacoma, Washington , was selected as the road's western terminus on
July 14 . However, for the past three years the financial house of
Jay Cooke and Company had been throwing money into the construction of the Northern Pacific. Like many western
Transcontinentals , the staggering costs of building a railroad into a vast wilderness were drastically underestimated. For a variety of reasons, led by the costs of constructing the railroad itself, Cooke and Company closed its doors on
September 18 . Soon, the
Panic Of 1873 engulfed the United States, ushering in a severe
Recession which would drag on for several years. The Northern Pacific, however, survived bankruptcy that year, due to austerity measures put in place by President Cass. In fact, working with last-minute loans from Director
John Commiger Ainsworth of Portland, the Northern Pacific completed the line from Kalama to Tacoma, 110 miles (177 km), before the end of the year. On
December 16 , the first steam train arrived in Tacoma. The year of 1874, however, found the company moribund.
Northern Pacific slipped into its first
Bankrupt cy on
June 30 1875 . Cass resigned to become receiver of the company, and
Charles Barstow Wright became fourth president of the company.
Frederick Billings , namesake of
Billings, Montana , formulated a reorganization plan which was put into effect. This same year George Custer was assigned to Fort Rice, Dakota Territory, and charged with protecting railroad survey and construction crews.
In
1877 , construction resumed in a small way. Northern Pacific pushed a branch line southeast from Tacoma to
Puyallup, Washington and on to the coal fields around
Wilkeson, Washington . Much of the coal was destined for export through Tacoma to
San Francisco, California , where it would be thrown into the fireboxes of
Central Pacific Railroad steam engines. This small amount of construction was one of the largest projects the company would undertake in the years between 1874 and 1880. That same year the company built a large shop complex at
South Tacoma, Washington . For many years the shops at Brainerd and South Tacoma would carry out heavy repairs and build equipment for the railroad.
On
May 24 1879 ,
Vermont lawyer
Frederick Billings became the president of the company. Billings' tenure would be short but ferocious. Reorganization, bond sales, and improvement in the U.S. economy allowed Northern Pacific to strike out across the Missouri River by letting a contract to build 100 miles (160 km) of railroad west of the river. The railroad's new-found strength, however, would be seen as a threat in certain quarters.
.]]
Ferdinand Heinrich Gustav Hilgard had been born in
Bavaria in
1835 , emigrating to America in
1853 , at the ripe old age of 18. Settling in
Illinois , the well-educated Hilgard became a journalist and editor, covering the
Lincoln-Douglas Debates , then the American Civil War for the larger New York papers, changing his name to
Henry Villard along the way. He went back to his native Germany in
1871 , where he came in contact with European financial interests speculating in American railroads. When he returned to the United States after the Panic of 1873, he was the representative of these concerns. In the few short years prior to
1880 , Villard intervened on the behalf of these interests in several transportation systems in Oregon. Through Villard's work, most of these lines wound up in the hands of the European creditors' holding company, the
Oregon And Transcontinental . Of the lines held by the Oregon and Transcontinental, the most important was the
Oregon Railway And Navigation Company, a line running east from Portland along the south bank of the Columbia River to a connection with the
Union Pacific Railroad 's
Oregon Short Line at the confluence of the Columbia River and the
Snake River near
Wallula, Washington . Within a decade of his return, Henry Villard became the head of a transportation empire in the Pacific Northwest that had but one real competitor, the ever-expanding Northern Pacific. Northern Pacific's completion threatened the holdings of Villard in the Northwest, and especially in Portland. Portland would become a second-class city if the Puget Sound ports at Tacoma and
Seattle, Washington were connected to the East by rail. Villard, who had been building a monopoly of river and rail transportation in
Oregon for several years, now launched a daring raid. Using his European connections and a reputation for having "bested"
Jay Gould in a battle for control of the
Kansas Pacific years before, Villard solicited — and raised —
$ 8 million from his associates. This was his famous "Blind Pool," Villard's associates were not told what the money would be used for. In this case, the funds were used to purchase control of the Northern Pacific. Despite a tough fight, Billings and his backers were forced to capitulate; he resigned the presidency June 9. Ashabel H. Barney was brought in as an interim caretaker of the railroad from June 19 to September 15, when Villard was finally elected president by the stockholders. For the next two years, Villard and the Northern Pacific rode the whirlwind.
In
1882 , 360 miles (580 km) of main line and 368 miles (592 km) of
Branch Line were completed, bringing totals to 1,347 miles (2,168 km) and 731 miles (1,176 km), respectively. On
October 10 1882 , the line from
Wadena, Minnesota , to
Fergus Falls, Minnesota , opened for service. The Missouri River was bridged with a million-dollar span on
October 21 1882 . The Missouri had been handled by a ferry service most of the year. During winters, when ice was thick enough, the rails were laid across the river itself. General
Herman Haupt another veteran of the Civil War and the Pennsylvania Railroad, set up the
Northern Pacific Beneficial Association on August 19. A forerunner of the modern
Health Maintenance Organization , the NPBA ultimately established a series of four hospitals across the system in
St. Paul, Minnesota ,
Glendive, Montana ,
Missoula, Montana , and
Tacoma, Washington , to care for employees, retirees, and their families.
Events reached their climax in
1883 . On
January 15 the first train reached
Livingston, Montana , at the eastern foot of
Bozeman Pass . Livingston, like Brainerd and South Tacoma before it, would grow to encompass a large backshop handling heavy repairs for the railroad. It would also mark the east-west dividing line on the Northern Pacific system. Villard pushed hard for the completion of the Northern Pacific in 1883. During Villard's presidency, crews were averaging a mile and half (2.4 km) of track laying each day. Finally, in September, the line neared completion. To celebrate, Villard chartered four trains to carry visitors from the East to Gold Creek in central Montana. No expense was spared and the list of dignitaries included Frederick Billings, Ulysses S. Grant, and Villard's in-laws, the family of abolitionist
William Lloyd Garrison . On
September 8 , the Gold Spike was driven at
Gold Creek .
However, Villard's fall turned out to be even swifter than his ascendancy. Like Jay Cooke, the enormous costs of constructing the railroad now consumed him. Wall Street bears attacked the stock shortly after the Gold Spike, after the realization that the Northern Pacific was a very long road with very little business. Villard himself is said to have suffered a nervous breakdown in the days following the Gold Spike, and he left the presidency of the Northern Pacific and the United States to convalesce in
Germany in January,
1884 . Again, the presidency of the Northern Pacific was handed to a professional railroader,
Robert Harris , former head of the
Chicago, Burlington And Quincy Railroad . For the next four years, until the return of the Villard clique, Harris worked at improving the property and breaking away from its tangled relationship with the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company.
Throughout the middle
1880s , the Northern Pacific pushed to reach Puget Sound directly, rather than a roundabout route following the Columbia River. Surveys of the
Cascade Mountains , carried out intermittently since the
1870s , now began anew.
Virgil Bogue , a veteran
Civil Engineer , was sent to explore the Cascades again. On
March 19 1881 , he discovered
Stampede Pass . In 1884, after the departure of Villard, the Northern Pacific began building toward Stampede Pass from Wallula in the east and the area of Wilkeson in the west. By the end of the year, rails had reached
Yakima, Washington in the east. A 77 mile (124 km) gap remained in
1886 . In January of that year,
Nelson Bennett was given a contract to construct a 9,850 foot (3,002 metre) tunnel under Stampede Pass. The contract specified a short amount of time for completion, and a large penalty if the deadline were missed. While crews worked on the tunnel, the railroad built a temporary
Switchback route across the pass. With numerous timber trestles and grades which approached six percent, the temporary line required the two largest locomotives in the world (at that time) to handle a tiny five-car train. On
May 3 1888 crews
Holed Through the tunnel, and on May 27 the first train direct to Puget Sound passed through.
Despite this success, the Northern Pacific, like many U.S. roads, was living on borrowed time. From 1887 until 1893 Henry Villard returned to the board of directors. Though offered the presidency, he refused. However, an associate of Villard dating back to his time on the Kansas Pacific,
Thomas Fletcher Oakes , assumed the presidency on
September 20 1888 . In an effort to garner business, the Villard regime pursued an aggressive policy of branch line expansion. In addition, the Northern Pacific experienced the first competition in the form of
James Jerome Hill and his
Great Northern Railway . The Great Northern, like the Northern Pacific before it, was pushing west from the Twin Cities towards Puget Sound, and would be completed in
1893 . To combat the Great Northern, in a few instances Villard built branch line mileage simply to occupy a territory, regardless of whether the territory offered the railroad any business. Mismanagement, sparse traffic, and the
Panic Of 1893 sounded the death knell for the Northern Pacific and Villard's interest in railroading. The company slipped into its second bankruptcy on
October 20 1893 . Oakes was named receiver and
Brayton C. Ives , a former chairman of the
New York Stock Exchange became president. For the next three years, the Villard-Oakes interests and the Ives interest feuded for control of the Northern Pacific. Oakes was eventually forced out as receiver, but not before three separate courts were claiming jurisdiction over the Northern Pacific's bankruptcy. Things came to a head in 1896, when first
Edward D. Adams was appointed president, then less than two months later,
Edwin Winter . Ultimately, the task of straightening out the muddle of the Northern Pacific was
John Pierpont Morgan . Morganization of the Northern Pacific, a process which befell many U.S. roads in the wake of the Panic of 1893, was handed to Morgan lieutenant
Charles Henry Coster . The new president, beginning
September 1 1897 , was
Charles Sanger Mellen . Though James J. Hill had purchased an interest in the Northern Pacific during the troubled days of 1896, Coster and Mellen would advocate, and follow, a staunchly independent line for the Northern Pacific for the next four years. Only the early death of Coster from overwork, and the promotion of Mellen to head the Morgan-controlled
New York, New Haven And Hartford Railroad in 1903, would bring the Northern Pacific closer to the orbit of James J. Hill.
In the late 1880s, the Villard regime, in another one of its costly missteps, attempted to stretch the Northern Pacific from the Twin Cities to the all-important rail hub of
1901 , Harriman began his stock raid which would become known as the
Northern Pacific Corner . By the end of the day he was short just 40,000 shares of common stock. Harriman placed an order to cover this, but was overridden by his broker,
Jacob Schiff , of
Kuhn, Loeb & Co. Hill, on the other hand, reached the vacationing Morgan in
Italy and managed to place an order for 150,000 shares of common stock. Though Harriman might be able to control the preferred stock, Hill knew the company bylaws allowed for the holders of the common stock to vote to retire the preferred. In three days, however, the Harriman-Hill imbroglio managed to wreak havoc on the stock market. Northern Pacific stock was quoted at $150 a share on May 6, and is reported to have traded as much as $1,000 a share behind the scenes. Harriman and Hill now worked to settle the issue for brokers to avoid panic. Hill, for his part, attempted to avoid future stock raids by placing his holdings in the
Northern Securities Company , a move which would be undone by the
Supreme Court in 1904 under the auspices of the
Sherman Anti-Trust Act . Harriman was not immune either; he was forced to break up his holdings in the Union Pacific and the
Southern Pacific Railroad a few years later.
In
1903 , Hill finally got his way with the House of Morgan.
Howard Elliott , another veteran of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, became president of the Northern Pacific on October 23. Elliott was a relative of the Burlington's crusty chieftain Charles Elliott Perkins, and more distantly the Burlington's great backer,
John Murray Forbes . He had spent twenty years in the trenches of Midwest railroading, where rebates, pooling, expansion and rate wars had brought ruinous competition. Having seen the effects of having multiple railroads attempt to serve the same destination, he was very much in tune with James J. Hill's philosophy of "community of interest," a loose affiliation or collusion among roads in an attempt to avoid duplicating routes, rate wars, weak finances and ultimately bankruptcies and reorganizations. Elliott would be left to make peace with the Hill-controlled Great Northern; the Harriman-controlled Union Pacific; and, between
1907 and
1909 , the last of the northern transcontinentals, the
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul And Pacific Railroad , more commonly known as the Milwaukee Road.
, June 1939.]]
In later years, consolidation in American railroading brought the Northern Pacific together with the Burlington, the Great Northern, and the
Spokane, Portland And Seattle Railway on
March 2 1970 to form the
Burlington Northern Railroad . Ironically, the merger was allowed despite a challenge in the Supreme Court, essentially reversing the outcome of the 1904 Northern Securities ruling.
The ''
North Coast Limited '' was a famous passenger train operated by the Northern Pacific Railway between Chicago and Seattle via Bismarck, North Dakota. It commenced service on April 29, 1900, served briefly as a Burlington Northern train after the merger on March 2, 1970 and ceased operation the day before Amtrak began service (April 30, 1971). The Chicago Union Station to St. Paul leg of the train's route was operated by the
Chicago, Burlington And Quincy Railroad along its Mississippi River mainline through Wisconsin.
In June of 1971, the ''North Coast Limited'' service was restarted by Amtrak as the North Coast Hiawatha operating via the
Milwaukee Road mainline between Chicago and Minneapolis. The train continued running on a 3 day a week schedule (with some periods of daily operation during holidays and summer) until it was again discontinued in 1979.
The ''North Coast Limited'' was the Northern Pacific's flagship train and the Northern Pacific itself was built along the trail first blazed by Lewis and Clark.
Presidents of Northern Pacific Railway were:
- Josiah Perham , 1864-1866.
- John Gregory Smith , 1866-1872.
- George Washington Cass , 1872-1875.
- Charles Barstow Wright , 1875-1879.
- Frederick Billings , 1879-1881.
- Henry Villard , 1881-1884.
- Robert Harris , 1884-1888.
- Thomas Fletcher Oakes , 1888-1893.
- Brayton C. Ives , 1893-1896.
- Edward Dean Adams , 1896.
- Edwin Winter , 1896.
- Charles Sanger Mellen , 1897-1903.
- Howard Elliott , 1903-1913.
- Jule Murat Hannaford , 1913-1920.
- Charles Donnelly , 1920-1939.
- Charles Eugene Denney , 1939-1950.
- Robert Stetson Macfarlane , 1951-1966.
- Louis W. Menk , 1966-1970.
- Edwin Ferry Johnson (1803-1872), Engineer-in-Chief, 1867. Wrote ''The Railroad To the Pacific, Northern Route, Its General Characteristics, Relative Merits, Etc.'' in 1854.''The National Cyclopedia of American Biography''. New York: James T. White, 1940.
- William Milnor Roberts (1810-1881), Engineer-in-Chief, 1869 to 1879. Proposed the general route of the Northern Pacific from Bismarck to Portland. Also, Vice President, American Society of Civil Engineers, 1873 to 1878, and then President, 1878.
- General Adna Anderson (1827-1889), Engineer-in-Chief, on Puget Sound . Preliminary reconnaissance and surveys began in March, 1880, and in autumn, 1883, Anderson concluded that the line should be built built through Stampede Pass .
- John William Kendrick (1853-1924), Chief Engineer, January, 1888, to July, 1893. From July, 1893, to February 1 , 1899 , he was general manager of the reorganized Northern Pacific Railway.Busbey, T. Addison, editor, ''The Biographical Directory of the Railway Officials of America, 1901 edition''. Chicago: Railway Age and Northwestern Railroader, 1901.
- Edwin Harrison McHenry (1859- August 21 , 1931 ), Chief Engineer, July, 1893, to September 1 , 1901 . Subsequently he was chief engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railway and then fourth vice-president of the New York, New Haven And Hartford Railroad .Busbey, T. Addison, editor, ''The Biographical Directory of the Railway Officials of America, 1906 edition''. Chicago: Railway Age, 1906.
- William Lafayette Darling (1856-1938), Chief Engineer, September 1 , 1901 , to September, 1903, and January, 1906, to 1916. Between 1905–1906, he was chief engineer for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul And Pacific Railroad , returning to the NP in 1906 as chief engineer and also vice-president and engineer in charge of construction of the Spokane, Portland And Seattle Railway .''Who’s Who in Railroading – United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba – 1930 Edition''. New York: Simmons-Boardman, 1930.
- Edward J. Pearson (1863-1928), Chief Engineer, September, 1903, to December, 1905.
- Howard Eveleth Stevens, Chief Engineer, 1916 to 1928.
- Bernard Blum, Chief Engineer, 1928 to March, 1953.
- Harold Robert Peterson (1896-1963), Chief Engineer, March, 1953, to May, 1962.
- Douglas Harlow Shoemaker, Chief Engineer, May, 1962, to March 2, 1970.
Northern Pacific was known for many firsts in locomotive history and was a leader in the development of modern
Supersteam Locomotives . NP was one of the first railroads to use Mikado
2-8-2 locomotives in the USA. The
4-8-4 , known as the Northern on many railroads, was first built by Alco in 1926 for NP and designated Class A. The
2-8-8-4 , called the Yellowstone, was first built for the NP by
Alco in 1928 and numbered 5000, Class Z-5, with more built by
Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1930. Much of this and later devopment was due to NP's need to burn low grade
Semibituminous Coal strip-mined at Rosebud,
Montana . The coal thus called Rosebud had a
Btu 50 percent lower than eastern coal which meant that the
Fireboxes had to be bigger than those used by most locomotives. The
Wootten Firebox was used, which was also used by the anthracite railroads.
The Northern Pacific purchased
Timken 1111 called the "Four Aces," the first locomotive built with
Roller Bearing s, in 1933. The Northern Pacific renumbered it 2626 and classified it as the sole member of locomotive Class A-1. It was used in passenger service in
Washington ,
Oregon ,
Idaho and
Montana until 1957 when it was retired from active service despite attempts to preserve the locomotive. After Timken 1111, the NP bought only roller bearing locomotives.
Twenty Northern Pacific steam locomotives have been preserved:
- Two 0-4-0 engines (the "Minnetonka" and 8).
- Five 0-6-0 engines, representing classes L-4 (927), L-5 (924), L-7 (1031) and L-9 (1068 and 1070).
- One 2-6-2 engine, class T (2435).
- One 2-8-0 engine, class Y-1 (25).
- One 2-8-2 engine, class W-3 (1762).
- One 4-4-0 engine, class C-1 (684).
- Five 4-6-0 engines, representing classes S-4 (1354, 1356, 1364 & 1382) and S-10 (328).
- Four 4-6-2 engines, representing class Q-3 (2152, 2153, 2156 & 2164).
in 1991.]]
In addition, preserved
SP&S 700 , a 4-8-4, was derived from Northern Pacific designs.
The
Northern Pacific Rotary 10 Steam Snowplow , built in November 1907, is currently owned by the
Northwest Railway Museum and is on display in
Snoqualmie, Washington .
Eight cars originally built for Northern Pacific by the
Pullman Company in the early 1900s are now used in daily service on the
Napa Valley Wine Train (NVRR). These cars were sold by NP to
Denver And Rio Grande Western Railroad in 1960 and were used for the ''
Ski Train '' between
Denver and
Winter Park, Colorado , before the NVRR purchased them in 1987.
- Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association
- Teriffic! It's Northern Pacific!
- ''The Tell Tale!'' Ten years of NP news!
- Armbruster, Kurt E. ''Orphan Road: The Railroad Comes to Seattle, 1853-1911.'' Pullman {Link without Title} : Washington State University Press, 1999.
- Asay, Jeff. ''Union Pacific Northwest; The Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation Company.'' Edmonds {Link without Title} : Pacific Fast Mail, 1991.
- Bryant, Keith L., Jr., Editor. ''Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography, Railroads in the Twentieth Century.'' New York: Facts on File, 1990.
- Budd, Ralph, and Howard Elliott. ''Great Northern and Northern Pacific Review of Operations from 1916 to 1923.'' New York: Wood, Struthers and Company, 1927.
- Campbell, Edward G. ''Reorganization of the American Railroad System, 1893-1900.'' New York: Columbia University Press, 1938.
- Campbell, Marius Robinson. ''Guidebook of the Western United States; Part A. The Northern Pacific Route, with a side trip to Yellowstone Park.'' Washington (D.C.): Government Printing Office, 1915.
- Donnelly, Charles. ''Facts About the Northern Pacific Land Grant.'' Saint Paul {Link without Title} : Northern Pacific Railway, 1924.
- Fredrickson, James Merlin. ''Railroad Shutterbug; Jim Fredrickson’s Northern Pacific.'' Pullman {Link without Title} : Washington State University Press, 2000.
- Fredrickson, James Merlin. ''Washington State History Train.'' Tacoma {Link without Title} : Washington State Historical Society, 1995.
- Frey, Robert L., Editor. ''Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography, Railroads in the Nineteenth Century.'' New York: Facts on File, 1988.
- Hedges, James Blaine. ''Henry Villard and the Railways of the Northwest.'' New Haven {Link without Title} : Yale University Press, 1930.
- Hidy, Ralph W., et al. ''The Great Northern Railway, A History.'' Boston {Link without Title} : Harvard Business School Press, 1988.
- Lewty, Peter J. ''Across the Columbia Plain; Railroad Expansion in the Interior Northwest, 1885-1893.'' Pullman {Link without Title} : Washington State University Press, 1995.
- Lewty, Peter J. ''To the Columbia Gateway; The Oregon Railway and the Northern Pacific, 1879-1884.'' Pullman {Link without Title} : Washington State University Press, 1987.
- Macfarlane, Robert Stetson. ''Henry Villard and the Northern Pacific.'' New York: Newcomen Society in North America, 1954.
- Martin, Albro. ''James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest.'' New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.
- Oberholtzer, Ellis P. ''Jay Cooke.'' New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968.
- Schrenk, Lorenz P., and Frey, Robert L. ''Northern Pacific Classic Steam Era.'' Mukilteo {Link without Title} : Hundman Publishing, 1997.
- Schrenk, Lorenz P., and Frey, Robert L. ''Northern Pacific Railway Supersteam Era 1925-1945.'' Golden West Books 1985.
- Smalley, Eugene V. ''History of the Northern Pacific Railroad.'' New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1883.
- Villard, Henry. ''Memoirs of Henry Villard.'' New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1904.
- Ward, James A. ''That Man Haupt.'' Baton Rouge {Link without Title} : Louisiana Sate University Press, 1973.
- Winks, Robin W. ''Frederick Billings: A Life.'' New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
