I need some early history from the Alton family. Their predecessor, Chicago & Alton RR acquired a company named the St. Louis, Peoria & Northern RR. I did find one mention that latter operation was sold in March of 1900, to I am guessing the C&A. True? If so, what date was the transaction completed? Did the C&A absorb St.LP&N operations immediately? Or later? Or what happened? Anyone? Boxcab E50
William Guy owned St.LP&N in 1898 and was planning a lot of expansion in Illinois. One area of expansion was going to impact C&A and that got Harriman's attention. The Harriman Syndicate owned C&A and several other RRs at the time. Guy had the financial backing to get it done also in the form of William Rockefeller. Well Harriman met with Rockefeller and convinced him to back the Harriman Syndicate instead. Without funding, Guy's expansion of the St.LP&N fell apart. Harriman offered to buy the St.LP&N and Guy sold. The deal appears to have closed Dec 1, 1899 for about $3.5M. Since the Harriman Syndicate bought St.LP&N, only part of the assets went to C&A. Part of it went to Illinois Central. I found this in the book "The Chicago & Alton Railroad" by Gene Glendinning. Hope this helps.
I was just Googling some, and found this site. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A05EFDD1339E733A25755C1A9659C946197D6CF The way they write, it sounds like the sale came in about mid-March of 1900. Some of these early 20th century, late 19th century mergers, abandonments, and sales are really confusing! Boxcab E50
The dates published for these things seem to depend on what the writer considers the appropriate date - the contract signing, the offer day, the day everything finally changes hands. If they actually signed the papers on Dec 1 1899, it would have taken a few months after that for everything to have been turned over to the Harriman Syndicate and then redistributed.
So true. There is a date for when the sale is approved. Usually another for when consumated. The date consumated may not be the day operations were absorbed, rather they may have operated independently a while longer, sometimes years. This absorption date is the one I look to for the best chance of knowing when a RR finally lost it's identity. But then you can also have the corporate shell surviving for another 100 years and more... Or the RR taking over may be new, and folks cross up that date the new RR incorporated, with the date of takeover. Which those two events happening at the same time is rarely true. Then there are forms used by families of owned or controlled, but independently managed railroads. X System, Y Lines. So even those can confuse the picture. Argh! Boxcab E50
