As late as 1850, much of the territory west of the
Mississippi was only roughly sketched geologically and
geographically. Exploratory expeditions modeled after that of
Lewis and Clark became the primary taxonomical tools for the
largely unexplored and unsettled Rocky Mountain West. Until
the Civil War interrupted these surveys, most expeditions were
sponsored by the military in order to settle territorial
disputes or provide cartographic information for proposed wagon
routes. By 1867, renewed interest in exploration for
settlement and economic development emerged. Between 1867 and
1870, the United States sponsored what were known as the
Great Surveys, four extensive campaigns of comprehensive
research on the western landscape sponsored by the government
but subsidized by private enterprise as well. Rail
companies were among the largest private contributors.
Railroads had a primary interest in detailed geographical
information and speculated on survey results which would
facilitate their marketing enterprises in the West, and they counted on profits from
their investments, both in offering real estate from their land grants
and then in hauling the raw materials of farming and mining from the settled territories. Northern Pacific
Railroad
acquired 47 million acres between Lake Superior and the Puget
Sound along a proposed line that spanned 1,975 miles, the
largest land grant ever given to a railroad.(Poor 471) Based on current rail
costs in the 1860's, the estimated construction cost per mile
ranged from $17,000 in the level eastern portions in Minnesota
and the Dakotas; $30,000 in the high plains of Montana; and
nearly $50,000 in the Northern Rockies of Idaho and the
Cascades in Washington. The Central Pacific railroad,
contracted to build from San Francisco east to meet the Union
Pacific, estimated a cost of over 97 million dollars, only a
quarter of which was to be paid in government subsidy (Poor
425).
The railroads were
justifiably optimistic about their future prospects for selling real estate that could be developed to provide
valuable raw materials to haul. Tales of California's
fertile land and agreeable climate compared it to
the Mediterranean, and rumors of the moist climate and exotic
land in the Pacific Northwest painted tropical pictures in the
minds of Easterners who nicknamed it "Jay Cooke's Banana Belt,"
referring to the chief financier-cum-chief publicist of the
Northern Pacific Railroad.(Harnsberger 46) The railroads marketed
each region along their lines to sell the land for settlement,
often exaggerating or distorting the truth about the territory
in order to make it more appealing to immigrants and
disgruntled Eastern urbanites. "The Old Northwest" of
Minnesota and the Dakotas was touted as the most fertile land
in the New World, and California became "Cornucopia of the
World" in advertisements from Southern and Union Pacific.
These schemes worked, and scores of settlers, almost all of
them unaware of the harsh realities of life in these
territories, rode the rails west to claim their land.
"Room
for millions of immigrants," prolcaimed Southern Pacific in
this ad, which was distributed throughout Europe. Thousands of
eager settlers rushed to California to begin new lives in the
"land of health and wealth." Southern Pacific did not prepare
these immigrants for the hardships they would endure, both in
cross-country train passage in substandard cars and in the
California wilderness, where a lack of established communities
made acclimation difficult at best.

Northern Pacific had its own schemes,
such as this 1872 ad from Harper's which touted the fertile
soil and agreeable "health-giving" climate of Western Minnesota
and the Dakotas. Jay Cooke and Company targeted these
campaigns at Scandinavia and Northern Europe, assuming that the
constitutions of these nationalities would be well-suited to
life on the Northern Plains. Despite the abundance of
Scandinavian settlers, famine, poverty, and death plagued the region early in its
settlement.
Selling real estate and speculating on stable economic success from future
markets for freight and resources did not address the immediate necessities
of building the railroad. The high price of transcontinental railroad construction required immediate
capital, and rail companies could only sell real estate once the track to available land was completed.
Primary railroads like Northern, Union, and Southern Pacific each offered almost 100 million dollars in
available stock, an amount roughly equivalent to their costs of construction. From the 1860's to the mid-1880's,
railroad companies needed to work just as hard at attracting investors as they did to attract future settlers.
In order to win the financial support of potential shareholders, the railroads needed a way to entice the
wealthy into riding the railroads in order to persuade them into believing that buying stock in the railroad
was a solid financial investment.
A well-developed campaign to attract settlers and sell real estate was part of proving to investors that the
railroads would enjoy future prosperity, but scattered along any Western rail line were regions of rugged
mountains, steep slopes, and poor soil unsuitable for
settlement. Initial reports dating to 1855 claimed that these areas were
more majestic and awe-inspiring than any Swiss scene. As tales
of regions like Yosemite and Yellowstone traveled east and
fascinated the public, the railroad companies seized the
opportunity to maximize the utility of their holdings and capitalize on the idea that selling scenery
could be as profitable as selling arable land. Although the
popular view of land at the time, as Alfred Runte succinctly
states it, held that "wealth of resources, not of scenery, had
become the nation's ultimate measure of achievement," the
railroads saw Yosemite and Yellowstone as different kinds of economic resources that they
could use for tourism. (Runte NP 53)
Because of railroad interest in sponsoring scenic parks in the West to attract investors and build a
market for passenger travel, the railroads became the most active and effective supporters of the idea of
creating National Parks in America. Despite the best intentions of preservationists and the gradually
emerging notion that the American wilderness represented one expression of a national heritage, the
National Park System of today is a product of the needs of the railroads in the Nineteenth and early
Twentieth centuries. The railroads did not consciously create protected spaces of Western ecology or
American heritage, but instead took advantage of popular trends in perceptions of the West to maximize
their profits through tourism, visitation, and investment.
Advertisements for travel to Yellowstone and Yosemite illustrate the ability of Northern and Southern
Pacific Railroads to shape and respond to interest in the West in order to encourage rail travel and park
visitation to meet their economic needs. From the 1860's to the 1880's, the railroads targeted an elite
audience in order to win their support, and the publicity they stirred before rail construction and the
advertisements they sponsored after its completion promised the elite an unparalleled experience on the exotic American
frontier with plenty of luxury to make the trip palatable. In the 1890's, both the needs of the railroads and
the character of the West were changing, and the railroads shifted their advertising strategy to a mass-
market approach to target new tourists who could help the rails achieve greater returns on their tourism
facilities in Yosemite and Yellowstone. Finally, as the West came of age economically and posed threats
to the issue of park preservation, the railroads led the final impetus to legislate a central government bureau
to protect the parks from development--and protect the substantial investments and profit centers the
railroads had in the national parks.

Discovery and Invention in Yosemite