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On March 1, 1854, William Brackett, Esq., published remarks about John Buford's
role in the development and completion of the Chicago - Rock Island Railroad in the Rock Island Advertiser.
While the mind is almost bewildered in contemplating the fruits of the gigantic
achievement, whose success we have come here to-day to celebrate, as well as the glorious prospect which looms
up in the future, the recollections of the past seem to be almost forgotten, and the memory of those who first
conceived and planned the project of uniting by strong iron bands the "worn out world" of the East with
the young, vigorous, and sinewy West, seems to be almost lost sight of amid the transports of joy which greet us
on every side. -- Yet we should not forget that there is a past, as well as a present and a future to the history
of this road.
And well do I remember how gloomy and overshadowed seemed the prospect of this
enterprise a little more than seven years ago, when a Spartan band of the citizens of Rock Island first broached
this subject at a public meeting, held in the Court House.-- That meeting was called together for the purpose of
taking into consideration the question of petitioning our Legislature to grant a charter for a railroad from Rock
Island to Peru. In that day of small things, that antedeluvian period, before the deluge of emigration had set
in upon us from the East, it was not thought proper or polite to ask for a road as long as that from Chicago to
Rock Island. That would have been asking too much. I see around me some of those who participated in the proceedings
of that meeting; Col. Buford, the venerable father of the President of the day, presided over its delibertions--a
name which I cannot recall in connexion with this subject without doing his memory the justice to say, that he
was far in advance of his age. Without any of that halting or blinding prejudice which is supposed to belong peculiarly
to the aged, his clear and penetrating wisdom foresaw the great and exceeding weight of glory and prosperity that
would be wrought out for the people of the West, by establishing such a line of communication between the Atlantic
sea-board and the great basin of the Mississippi Valley; and he gave to this project the whole force and ardor
of his generous nature. I think, sir, it is not saying too much of him to affirm that had his valuable life been
spared to us a few years longer, this enterprise would have sooner commended itself to public favor. There would
not have been so many doubting Thomases amongst us, and we should have witnessed several years earlier, the magnificent
spectacle which is presented to us today.
Another article published in the Rock Island Advertiser on March 1, 1854 gives
the details of
this continuous line of railroad connecting the Mississippi with Lake Michigan.
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