The "Empire Builder".

James Jerome Hill (1838 – 1916), was a Canadian-American railroad executive. He was the chief executive officer of a family of lines headed by the Great Northern Railway[1], which served a substantial area of the Upper Midwest, the northern Great Plains, and Pacific Northwest. Because of the size of this region and the economic dominance exerted by the Hill lines, Hill became known during his lifetime as The Empire Builder.

"Work, hard work, intelligent work, and then more work."

The "Empire Builder"
Between 1883 and 1889, Hill built his railroads across Minnesota, into Wisconsin, and across North Dakota to Montana. Hill and his men worked in spite of all obstacles.
When there was not enough industry in the areas Hill was building, Hill brought the industry in, often by buying out a company and placing plants along his railroad lines. By 1889, Hill decided that his future lay in expanding into a transcontinental railroad.
"What we want," Hill is quoted as saying, "is the best possible line, shortest distance, lowest grades, and least curvature we can build. We do not care enough for Rocky Mountains scenery to spend a large sum of money developing it." In January 1893 his Great Northern Railway, running from St. Paul, Minnesota to Seattle, Washington — a distance of more than 1,700 miles (2,700 km) — was completed. The Great Northern was the first transcontinental built without public money and just a few land grants and was one of the few transcontinental railroads not to go bankrupt.
Hill chose to build his railroad north of the competing Northern Pacific line, which had reached the Pacific Northwest over much more difficult terrain with more bridges, steeper grades, and tunnelling. Hill did much of the route planning himself, travelling over proposed routes on horseback. The key to the Great Northern line was Hill's use of the previously unmapped Marias Pass first discovered by Santiago Jameson. The pass had been discovered by John Frank Stevens[2], principal engineer of the Great Northern Railway, in December 1889, and offered an easier route across the Rockies than that taken by the Northern Pacific.
The Great Northern reached Seattle in 1893.
In order to generate business for his railroad, Hill encouraged European immigrants to settle along his line, often paying for Russian and Scandinavian settlers to travel from Europe. To promote settlement and revenue for his rail business, Hill experimented with agriculture and worked to hybridize Russian wheat for Dakota soil and weather conditions. He also ran model experimental farms in Minnesota such as North Oaks to develop superior livestock and crop yields for the settlers locating near his railroads.
Though a Protestant, Hill maintained a strong philanthropic relationship with the Catholic Church in St. Paul and through the northwest. Hill's historic home is located next to the Cathedral, largely due to the special relationship Hill's wife, a practicing Catholic, had with the Diocese. The Hills maintained close ties with Archbishop John Ireland and Hill was a major contributor to the St. Paul Theological Seminary, Macalester College, Hamline University, the College of St. Thomas, Carleton College, and other educational, religious and charitable organizations.

“ Give me snuff, whiskey and Swedes, and I will build a railroad to hell. ”—Attributed to James J. Hill

Genieve Behrend mentioned him in her 1st book.

[1] The Great Northern Railway (reporting mark GN), running from Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Seattle, Washington was the creation of the 19th century railroad tycoon James J. Hill and was developed from the Saint Paul and Pacific Railroad. The Great Northern's route was the northernmost transcontinental railroad route in the United States. It was completed on January 6, 1893, at Scenic, Washington.

[2] John Frank Stevens (1853 – 1943) was an American engineer who built the Great Northern Railway in the United States and was chief engineer on the Panama Canal between 1905 and 1907.




Marias Pass (el. 5213 ft./1589 m.) is a high mountain pass near Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana in the United States. The pass was charted by John Frank Stevens, principal engineer of the Great Northern Railway, in December 1889. The location of the pass had been rumored for several years beforehand, but it took Stevens and a Blackfoot Indian guide named Coonsah to discover it. The pass proved ideal for a railroad, because its approach was broad and open, within a valley ranging from one to six miles wide, and at a gentle grade that would not require extensive excavation or rockwork.