RAILWAY LEGACY REMEMBERED
BY JACKIE GOLD BANFF CRAG & CANYON STAFF
When Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald proposed a cross-Canada railway in 1873 the government responded with negativity. Yet five years later when Macdonald came back into power he brought up the idea of a railway again, and met with a better reception.
Though many in office at the time feared that railway barons would eventually force their way into the government, the Canadian Railway Bill passed, giving the Canadian Pacific Railway a 20 year monopoly on western trade, as well as 25 million acres of land and $25 million, a fortune in those days.
To ensure that the railway would meet the expectations of not only Canadian travellers, but international ones as well, the Canadian Pacific hired William Cornelius Van Horne to be its general manager in 1882.
Van Horne was no stranger to hardship or hard work. When his father died of cholera, Van Horne, then 11, was too young to be much help to his mother, who had to earn a living by sewing in order to support Van Horne and his four younger siblings.
When Van Horne reached the ripe old age of 14 in 1857, he quickly found work with the Illinois Central Railway office as a telegrapher to help support the family.
Ten years later, in 1867 Van Horne married Lucy Adaline Hurd, after moving to Bloomington , Illinois to take on a new position as train dispatcher.
Van Horne's skills had not gone unnoticed by his superiors, and a year after his marriage he not only had a baby girl to bounce on his knee, but had also become the youngest railway head in the world, at age 29.
Although he had met his own personal goal, of being general superintendent of Illinois Central Railway, Van Horne had yet to travel as far up the lines as he could in the railway industry.
In 1881 Van Horne accepted the Canadian Pacific's offer to be general manager, and by January 1882 he began his duties in Winnipeg . Three years after he took the helm, the Canadian Pacific saw the last spike driven into its new mainline.
The ceremony that day was simple, as per Van Horne's request. All the workers gathered to watch the spike being driven into the ground, symbolically joining Canada together in a more tangible way than any piece of paper could.
Less than 46 months after his arrival, Van Horne had achieved the Canadian Pacific's goal of a coast-to-coast railway.
Less than a year later the first passenger train left Montreal for B.C.
The speed and success of Van Horne's efforts earned him the title of president of the Canadian Pacific in 1888, and later a knighthood. Van Horne not only managed to build the line efficiently, he built it with an eye to the future. Rather than build small, simple structures along the line, Van Horne built imposing grandiose structures, which awed visitors and locals alike.
Tourism, Van Horne believed, would be the way of the future. It would entice people to travel the railroad even after other methods of transportation became popular. Milking the western scenery for every dollar, Van Horne built his hotels with tourism in mind, "Since we can't export the scenery we'll have to import the tourists," Van Horne said.
An armature architect, Van Horne took pleasure in sketching designs for the luxurious hotels he pictured gracing the imposing mountainscape, however left the real work up to Bruce Price, a great architect of the time. When Van Horne's vision was completed his goal had been achieved, and possibly surpassed by Price's expertise. Lodgings that offered a royal calibre of guestroom and all the comforts of home, set in a castle surrounded by snow-covered mountains, proved irresistible to travellers, as Van Horne had suspected.
Van Horne continued to work with the Canadian Pacific after the railway was completed, first as president, than as chairman of the board, all the while pursuing his own personal interests, which were wide and varied.
A collector of Japanese pottery, his collection was said to be the largest in North America . Rumour had it that Van Horne could identify nine out of 10 ceramic objects while blindfolded.
Interest in horticulture, paleontology, geology, art and even raising prize cattle kept Van Horne busy until his death in September 1915, at the age of 72. Across the continent the entire Canadian Pacific system halted for five minutes to pay homage to the railway's main creator.
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