jan 1, 1855 - LP&W RW

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In 1855 the Leavenworth Pawnee and Western Railway (LP&W RW) was chartered by the Kansas Territorial Legislature (Weiser p. 2). William Russell of the Major and Waddell Freighting Company were on the first Board. They were going to build directly from Leavenworth to Fort Riley, but their group failed to attract investors. In 1857 the LP&W RW passed into the hands of a second group of four owners including Thomas Ewing Jr. (1829-1866) who became the “Kingpin” of this line. Ewing Jr. and his group were more successful in raising money with a plan to build from Leavenworth to the new abolitionist city of Lawrence and on to Fort Riley. They used this money to negotiate land from the Delaware and Pottawatomie Indians but still there were no buyers (Petrowski, p. 23).
With a depression in 1860 the rail project sat idle until 1861 when the LP&W RW forged an alliance with investors in St. Louis allied with the Pacific Railroad (later the Missouri Pacific). When the North passed the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 the LP&W RW received a land grant from the government for a line up the Republican River from Leavenworth to Fort Kearny, Nebraska Territory. Part of the legislation was for the LP&W RW to build 100 miles of lines from Leavenworth to Lawrence, and Wyandott to Ft. Riley in two years (Petrowski p. 22). They started construction but the LP&W RW fell into dire straits, was taken over by the Union Pacific Railway Eastern Division in 1863, became financially successful as the Kansas Pacific in 1869, and finally the Union Pacific Railroad in 1880.

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