The percentage for 1886 was 8 percent.
Adams to H. White, Dec. 3, 1885, UP, PO, OC, vol. 30, ser. 2, r. 26.
Adams to Callaway, Oct. 10, 1885, UP, PO, OC, vol. 32, ser. 2, r. 28.
Julius Grodinsky, Transcontinental Railway Strategy, 1869-1893: A Study of Businessmen (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1962), 165-66
H. F. Scott to CPH, Aug. 12, 1892, CPH, ser. 1, r. 51.
Stuart Daggett, Chapters on the History of the Southern Pacific (New York: Ronald Press Company, 1922), 293-301.
W. H. Mills to CPH, June 7, 1892, CPH Papers, ser. 1, r. 50.
San Francisco merchants also gained an advantage over eastern wholesalers by carrying bills for three to twelve months, while eastern wholesalers demanded payment in thirty days.
Testimony of Jay Gould, May 19, 1887, PRC, 1:588.
For actual costs, Testimony of James W. Davis, June 21, 1887, PRC,3:1087.
The best American bar iron was running between $146 (its peak) a ton in 1865 and $75 in 1870. Pig iron ran between a little under $60 to a little under $40 during this same period. Ties usually ran 25 to 50 cents.
Maury Klein defends Gould in Union Pacific, 414-17. Brokers doubted that the market could sustain any large public sale of Kansas Pacific stock.
Testimony of Oliver Ames, May 31, 1887, PRC, 2:812-13.
Testimony of Jay Gould, May 17, 1887, PRC, 1:476.
Testimony of Artemas Holmes, May 10, 1887 (recalled), PRC, 1:267-76.
The Union Pacific was not quite so helpless.
See, e.g., the Union Pacific's involvement with the Salina, Lincoln, and Western Railway.
Adams to George Miller, April 30, 1886, Memorandum, May 1886; quote, Adams to Hon. A. S. Hewitt, Dec. 10, 1886, 1886, all in UP, PO, OC, vol. 37, ser. 2, r. 32.
Veenendaal, Slow Train to Paradise, 52-53.