McCook Daily Gazette - Nebraska / March 12, 2007
In recent years it is rare for one man to have the amount of influence on one town as did Alexander Campbell, the Superinten-dent of the Burlington Railroad in 1882, the year of McCook's coming into being. 125 years later, we in McCook, can be grateful to this foreigner who did so much to shape our community's destiny.
Alexander Campbell was born in Scotland in 1843 and moved with his parents to Canada in about 1848. He spent his early years working on various farms in the area. As a teenager, he apprenticed to a blacksmith and followed that trade until, at age 20, he took a job with the Calumet and Hecla Mining Co., located on the Keweenaw Peninsula, at the most northern point in Michigan.
Until after the Civil War, C & H Mining Co. produced 85 percent of the copper in America -- most of it coming from the Keweenaw Peninsula.
After the Civil War, in 1869, Campbell went to work for the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, which brought him to Nebraska. His association with the Burlington RR practically coincides with the history of the rail line west of the Missouri River.
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