mar 3, 1869 - UPRR-ED becomes Kansas Pacific Railroad

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On March 3, 1869, the UPRR-ED officially became the Kansas Pacific Railroad. Sidney Clarke (1831-1909) a member of the House of Representatives from Kansas introduced a bill in the U.S. Congress changing the name of the UPRR-ED to the Kansas Pacific Railroad (Petrowski p. 192). The Kansas Pacific inadvertently hit the jackpot in 1867 when Joseph McCoy negotiated a contract to bring cattle along the Chisholm Trail from Texas to Abilene, Kansas. This major event led to the development of the Kansas City Stockyards. The Kansas Pacific finally started turning a profit for the first time because settlers were moving to Kansas in mass after the Civil War and the railroad was charging money to transport railroad construction equipment and supplies on its lines in Kansas (Petrowski, p. 180).