1 Jan 1871 Jahr - Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad

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(Photo: The largest and most powerful steam engine ever built, the Union Pacific Big Boy 4-8-8-4 (1941-1959) steams through Bonner Springs on a tour of the United States November 19, 2019. Photograph Curtis V. Smith)

In 1871 the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad (AT&SF) was constructed on the South side of the Kaw River as a competing route to the Union Pacific. The railroad ran diagonally straight from Chicago to Leavenworth and Kansas City hooking Atchison as a small branch in route to Topeka and then on to Pueblo, Colorado by 1876. The main line ran from the Union Depot in Kansas City, Missouri to Kansas City, Kansas, through Argentine, and Turner before meeting with the Atchison branch in Topeka for a total of 66 miles. It was a major employer in the Argentine and Turner area of Kansas City, Kansas. The AT&SF eventually had the largest system of terminals and the best passenger, freight depots, roundhouses, car repair shops, car-icing plants, grain elevators, livestock and feeding yards in Kansas City, Kansas by the 1930s.
Cyrus K. Holliday was the first President of the AT&SF, which was first chartered in 1859 to join Atchison and Topeka and later on to Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was as important as the Union Pacific in terms of moving people to settle in Kansas. Much AT&SF revenue came from wheat and cattle moved on lines from Texas to Wichita and Dodge City. In 1864 Holliday received funding from the federal government to build a line from Emporia to Fort Riley. Carbondale coal discoveries in Raton, New Mexico persuaded Holliday to continue west. The first President of the AT&SF was excellent at adapting to change and absorbing other failed lines. There had been a lot of overbuilding of railroads early on and he was able to pick up these pieces and build a competing line with the Union Pacific. It was critical to have competing railroad lines in Kansas to keep rate limits low. Kansas was one of the first states to have railroad price regulations by 1883.
Samuel Pomeroy was a former Mayor of Atchison and a Senator from Kansas who became the second President of the AT&SF in 1864. He was an anti-slavery politician but oddly anti-Lincoln. He also helped to found Lawrence. Pomeroy was known for political corruption but evidence has shown his illegalities didn’t involve his railroad.
AT&SF lines eventually reached the Pacific through New Mexico, Phoenix, Arizona and San Diego by 1885 and Los Angeles by 1886. Its bright red and yellow engines were popularized in the 1930s as Super Chief passenger lines to Southern California. The AT&SF was the subject of a popular song written for the film The Harvey Girls in 1946 entitled “On the Atchison Topeka and the Santa Fe.” The song was written by Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer. The AT&SF merged with the Burlington Northern Railway in 1996 to make it the largest competitor with the Union Pacific west of the Mississippi.

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