Arrangement
Only the H. Roger Grant book research series is available at the Regional History Center. The entire series for the collection is listed only to provide context for the material that have been returned to the Chicago and North Western Historical Society. It consists of nine series: public relations department files; property records; memorabilia; Chicago and North Western printed material; related publications; the Chicago and North Western Historical Society's publications, North Western Lines; photographs; architectural drawings and maps; and H. Roger Grant’s book research. Only the ninth series is available at the Regional History Center.
Administrative/Biographical History
The Chicago and North Western Historical Society was founded in 1973 as the Chicago and North Western Historical, Technical and Modeling Society. A not-for-profit corporation, chartered in the State of Illinois, the group has over 600 members. Governed by a Board of Directors, the society rotates its annual meeting each May to a different site throughout the Midwest and publishes North Western Lines quarterly. The Northern Illinois Regional History Center has been designated as the repository of the society's historical and technical material relating to the Chicago and North Western Railroad.
Organized on June 6, 1859, the Chicago and North Western Railroad first legally used its title in 1861. The parent of the organization, the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, incorporated in 1836, was the first railroad west of Chicago, reaching the Mississippi River in 1855. Consolidating with the Chicago and North Western Railroad on June 2, 1864, the firm grew through constructions, purchase and merger to service nine Midwestern states.
In 1869, the company assisted in the completion of the first transcontinental railroad, carrying materials to Council Bluffs, Iowa for delivery to the Union Pacific Railroad. Cooperating with this line and the Southern Pacific, an overland route was created, providing connections with the east and the Chicago North Western Railroad with the first train from Chicago to the Pacific Coast. The company has an extensive list of firsts in the industry including: providing the first sleeping cars west of Chicago (1858); introducing cupolas on railroad cabooses (1863); manufacturing railroad postal cars (1865) and putting them into service (1867); using steel rails (1865); operating the first dining car west of Chicago (1869); introducing the Pullman Hotel Car (1877); providing the first regular Pullman train service (1895); and pioneering a railroad safety program (1910). Also, in 1926, they built the world's largest freight yard "Proviso Yard," housing the largest locomotive roundhouse in the United States.
Falling under government control, the firm was regulated by the United States Railroad Administration from December 1917 to March 1920. Due to a business recession from 1920-22, a program of reconstruction was begun in 1923 and completed in 1929. The depression, causing rail earnings to recede rapidly, beginning in 1931, saw sources of private capital almost disappearing by 1933-34 and the company filing bankruptcy on June 28, 1935. Operating under the supervision of the courts, the Interstate Commerce Commission approved reorganization of the Chicago and North Western Railroad Company in 1939. It was returned to private management in 1943 and has been employee owned since 1971.
