PBA Galleries

Rare and significant piece of railroad ephemera, marking the early stages of the great transcontinental railroad, and of one of the more curious episodes in the monumental undertaking. In 1863 the entrepreneur and railroad developer Samuel Hallett bought the controlling interest in the Leavenworth, Pawnee and Western railroad. This line became the Union Pacific Eastern Division and then the Kansas Pacific Railway, and Hallett undertook construction of the Kansas link of the railroad to the Pacific. On the completion of the first forty miles of the Kansas Pacific, an excursion was run from Wyandotte to Lawrence. A letter of invitation was sent out, with an accompanying card, of which this is an example. The card is worded as follows: "The Union Pacific Railway Company, Eastern Division, invite you to be present, as per letter of Mr. Samuel Hallett, to celebrate the opening of the first section of forty miles of their road west from the Missouri river." Before the celebration, scheduled for August 18th, 1864, could take place, tragic events intervened. Hallett had come into conflict with the chief engineer of the Kansas Pacific, Orlando A. Talcott. Talcott, in a letter to president Abraham Lincoln, accused Hallett of substandard construction of the railroad. The letter became known to Hallett, and as a result, Talcott was physically assaulted by one of Hallett's brothers in Wyandotte, Kansas. On July 27, 1864, Talcott retaliated by shooting Samuel Hallett dead in the streets of Wyandotte. The rare invitation has a view of a railroad track with train traversing plains, waterfalls, through tunnels, and past Indians as it plunges across the continent.