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Articles of consolidation between two railroads, on paper vellum, in ink in a clerical hand. 37 x 27 cm., 7 pages, approx. 1900 words, secured along the top margins by three metal brads; docketed on verso. Signed in ink by Edward F. Winslow, President of the St. Louis and Southeastern Railway Company, and by A.G. Cloud, President of the Evansville and Southern Illinois Railroad Company, on Feb. 21, 1871, and affixed with the blindstamped seals of both companies. Some light soiling, some fading to the ink, but all legible. The St. Louis & Southeastern was originally incorporated on March 10, 1869, with authorization to "locate, construct, furnish, maintain and operate a railway across the whole State of Illinois from the bank of the Mississippi River opposite the city of St. Louis in Missouri, thence to Mt. Vernon in Jefferson County, Illinois, thence to McLeansboro in Hamilton County, thence to Equality and thence to Shawneetown on the Ohio River." On March 26, 1869, the Evansville and Southern Illinois Railroad Company organized and incorporated to locate their lines from McLeansboro, Illinois, through the towns of Enfield and Carmi, to the dividing line between the States of Indiana and Illinois on the Big Wabash River. Since the two companies formed one continuous line of railroad from the bank of the Mississippi River to the boundary lines of Illinois and Indiana on the Wabash, they mutually agreed to consolidate under the name of the St. Louis and Southeastern Railroad Company in 1871. Corporate officers were named, annual meetings set, stocks amalgamated and merged, in the eight articles included here. The president of the St. Louis & Southeastern Railway, whose signature appears on this document, was Edward F. Winslow (1837-1914), a brevetted Brig. General of the 4th Iowa Cavalry during the Civil War. Following the war he and Gen. James Wilson helped establish the St. Louis & Southeastern Railway, the second line to be built through Evansville, connecting the city with St. Louis. The railway built a bridge over Pigeon Creek, erected yards, freight and passenger depots on Pearl Street near the Ohio River, and considered plans to build a railroad bridge across the Ohio. [see Winslow's brief biography accompanying a collection of his papers at the Univ. of Iowa Special Collections Dept., and mentioning his involvement in several different railroad companies, including as an inspector for the Union Pacific Railroad, appointed by Pres. Grant; see also a history of railroads in this area on the Historic Evansville website.] Its independent existence was brief. A court case brought by the People's Bank of Belville in the State of Illinois against Edward F. Winslow and James H. Wilson in 1876 demanded payment of two promissory notes totaling over $40,000. This followed a bill of foreclosure brought by Philo Calhoun and George Opdyke against the St. Louis & Southeastern Railway Co. on a mortgage it executed to secure its bonds in 1874. [see: the U.S. Supreme Court records of the case People's Bank v. Calhoun, 102 U.S. 256 (1880)]. The railroad went into foreclosure in 1880, was reorganized and leased to the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. It was sold to them in 1936.
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