Map of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway from “A Tour of St. Louis,” 1878. Photos courtesy of Anna Lee Ames Frolich
By Anna Lee Ames Frohlich
After retiring from politics and railroading in 1854, my great-great grandfather Thomas Allen tried the life of “otium cum dignitate,” leisure with dignity, but found it not to his liking. Missouri was a divided state during the war. Allen was a Union sympathizer. In 1860, he funded the Allen Guard from Pittsfield, Mass., his second home and birthplace. In 1866, while the country was trying to heal, he presented a plan (how little things change …) “for the liquidation of the national debt, by a grand patriotic subscription, in commutation of taxes, and also based, in part, on repayment in public lands.”
In 1867 an irresistible opportunity presented itself, and he once again turned his focus to railroads. The Iron Mountain Road, meant to open for market the richest mineral lands in Missouri, had not been completed due to the war and was handed back to the state and to St. Louis from which it had received large subsidies. Thomas Allen was able to purchase the Iron Mountain along with the Cairo and Fulton Railroad, which extended to the border of Arkansas. The state threw in the stipulation that the Iron Mountain be complete in five years. After much political maneuvering that made the task more difficult, Allen completed the project in less than half the time required in the contract.
Missouri Pacific Lines Railroad China, from an Allen family collection.
In 1871, he purchased with his associates the Cairo & Fulton Railroad of Arkansas, an extension of the road in Missouri. He now had the control of about 700 miles of track, the most important railroad line with its center in St. Louis. This road also connected them in the new town of Texarkana with railroad lines in Texas and routes to Galveston and other important locations in Texas. Thomas Allen renamed his entire system of railroads the Saint Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern.
A look back now at the railroad that first brought recognition to Allen, the Pacific Railroad, which by now was often being referred to as the Pacific Railroad of Missouri. It had even gone into the steamboat business. A fleet of 12 steamboats was available at Jefferson City, the western terminus of the railroad, to take passengers and freight up the Missouri River to Kansas City and beyond. By 1865, the railroad itself had crossed Missouri and reached Kansas City.
During the Civil War, raids against Missouri railroads were common. One of the most damaging raids was led by Sterling Price, a Confederate Army major general, against the Pacific Railroad. Then sometime in the early 1870s, the railroad had the dubious distinction of being robbed by the James brothers, Jesse and Frank, at Otterville. They only got away with a few thousand dollars. This was indicative of the lawlessness and terror holding sway in border regions. Outlaw gangs became bold after the rapid removal of Union troops.
The year 1872 brought financial woes and forced reorganization to the Pacific Railroad. It came out of receivership with the name Missouri Pacific Railway. Not long after, financier Jay Gould of New York developed an interest in western railroads after purchasing a large block of stock in the Union Pacific Railroad. Next he acquired control of the Central Pacific, the Kansas Pacific and the Denver Pacific. The Missouri Pacific Railway was expanding westward, and in 1879, to keep it from becoming a threat to the Union Pacific, Gould bought a controlling interest in and became the president of that railway. He organized his railroad system around the Missouri Pacific, once the Pacific Railroad and the first railroad west of the Mississippi.
Bust of Thomas Allen in the Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield, Mass.
In 1881 Thomas Allen and his associates sold the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern to Jay Gould. Thus both railroads that were nurtured and developed by Allen became part of Jay Gould’s enormous network.
Allen had other goals to reach for, mostly of a civic nature. He donated funds for the Berkshire Athenaeum in his beloved town of Pittsfield. The athenaeum still exists and is still “devoted to promoting education, culture and refinement and diffusing knowledge.” He donated funds for the State of Missouri Building at the Centennial Exposition in 1876, and he rebuilt the gracious Southern Hotel in St. Louis (1879-1881).
He was also the principal founder of the University Club of St. Louis. He gave a speech in 1878 pertaining to the character of our government. His words ring true even today, “Can we not have,” he demanded, “a higher degree of prosperity and better government at a less cost? This is one of the constantly recurring problems.”
Thomas Allen was elected in 1880 as a U.S. Representative to the 47th Congress. On April 8, 1882, he died in Washington, D.C., feeling that “he had left a portion of his work unaccomplished.” He left a respected legacy as a part of our nation’s westward advance.
His son, Thomas Allen, Jr., left a legacy to the West of an entirely different type…
