Mississippi & Missouri RR, UP, 1865-75

[uncoupled]

I am looking for anything written on, or information about, the M&M and its route through Iowa in roughly the period 1865 -1875, also its relationship to/with the UP. My only reference now is Empire Express.  I have a great aunt who married the son of a prominent San Francisco Gold Rush era attorney and who is listed in a later business directory as a "travelling auditor" for the Union Pacific (which may have put him in Iowa at about the right time for the marriage -1874 +/-). Given the likelihood of a "prominent SF attorney" having association with Crocker, Stanford, Huntington, and the like, I think I smell a corporate spy.  The whole family, including the new son-in-law, came to Wilmington Calif. in 1875. Any ideas, thoughts, references appreciated.

[jeffhergert]

  The Mississippi & Missouri RR was a Rock Island predecessor in Iowa.  Began construction in Davenport in 1855 and built as far as Kellogg, Iowa.  It was the first railroad in Iowa.  

  By 1865 it was in shaky financial condition.  Construction was going very slow.  In that era, many times railroads went to local communities to try to get support, financial or political, for their construction.  Another proposed railroad (that was never built) had already beaten the M&M people into those communities, so support for the M&M was less than stellar.  The Chicago and Rock Island bought it outright in 1865.

  Many of the early names associated with the building of the Union Pacific were involved with the building of the C&RI across Illinois and the M&M across eastern Iowa.

  More detailed info can be found in the RI's centennial book, "Iron Road to Empire."  Originals are out there or it was reprinted a few years back.

  Jeff