Episode 3 - 290128 Part 3 of 3 in the story of James J. Hill

James J. Hill - Birth of Empire

In this final installment of the James J. Hill trilogy, listeners of Empire Builders were treated to a dramatization of the culmination of Hill’s primary railroad building efforts. As rail lines of the Great Northern Railway were laid across the northern plains of North Dakota and Montana, across the Idaho panhandle and over the sparsely populated areas of Eastern Washington, Hill was known to travel parts of the line to inspect the progress first hand. Stories have been told of occasions when Hill stepped out of his business car, and in bitter cold winter conditions, spelled a track worker or two by driving spikes in their place while they took a break in the warmth and shelter of his rail car.

How true such stories are, I can’t say. But this episode of Empire Builders included the telling of one such event, during which Hill, having arrived on the work scene late at night, even bunked with some of the men, but not before one of the track gang was persuaded to sing a few tunes, including a couple verses of "Casey Jones." This sort of device was used in many Empire Builders episodes to ensure the dramatizations were infused with a little musical variety.

Great Northern Railway track laborers shoveling snow to clear the path for the final rails of the line to be laid. This photograph was taken not far from Stevens Pass in the Cascade Mountains in December, 1892 - just a few weeks before the last spike was driven.  Anders Wilse photograph - Author's collection

 

The Old Timer – still called the Pioneer in the early episodes of the series – then came to the microphone to advance the story with a segue into the winter of 1893, when the line finally reached completion from St. Paul to Puget Sound in western Washington. Crews had constructed the rail line from Seattle and Everett, along the shores of Puget Sound, up the foothills of the Cascade Mountains toward Stevens Pass. From the east, the railway had been completed across the northern plains and up over the Cascades, all the while spawning the growth of villages and towns along the line and a variety of commercial and agricultural activity.

Most of the construction of the GN’s transcontinental line grew west out of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, but Hill always had the west coast in his sights as the primary goal. Beyond completion of a transcontinental rail line, Hill even envisioned a steamship line to open trade with the Orient. But that would come a little later. Unlike many of the first of our nation’s transcontinental railroads, which relied heavily on government land grants and then overextended themselves, Hill’s Great Northern Railway was developed with an eye to self-sufficiency. James J. Hill imported high quality Angus beef from Scotland, and bred them on a ranch north of St. Paul. He was known to give prime steers to ranchers along his line with the calculated view of improving the stock being raised for market – for which his Great Northern line would provide necessary transportation. He did the same with helping develop heartier strains of wheat. Thus, the construction of the Great Northern Railway focused mostly on its growth from east to west, rather than being constructed with a more-or-less equal advance from each end. When track construction crews from the west (who battled multiple floods and bridge washouts while forging their way up the west slopes of the Cascade Mountains) finally met up with the crews from the east who had been building the line westward for about three years, it became clear the final spike would be driven at a location just west of the railroad’s summit of Stevens Pass.

With word of the impending completion of the nation’s northern-most transcontinental railroad, newsmen scurried to the scene to report the event. Several other railroads were already completed across the country by this time; much of the earlier luster of such events was lost. Still, James J. Hill and his railroad rose above the pack of those who came before, largely because he was a savvy and successful businessman who made this railroad his personal quest. At least one reporter from the east coast, a man from the New York Times, tried to get to the site of the last spike in time to see it driven. He felt that his timing was adequate, since on board the train with him was the railroad’s own official photographer, C.E. LeMunyon from Great Falls, Montana. This train did not arrive until after nightfall, on January 6, 1893. That night, at about 8pm, crews had completed the line, but for the driving of the last spike. They were not inclined to stand around in the deep snow waiting for the photographer to show up. Using hand-held conductor’s lanterns to illuminate the event, the last spike was driven in place by two superintendents on hand for the occasion – J. D. Farrrell and Cornelius Shields. By the light of the new day, the photographer convinced the men to form together for a reenactment of the auspicious event, and snapped their photo on January 7^th – the next day after the line was actually completed.

GN Superintendents Farrell and Shields pose with their spike mauls in a January 7, 1893, reenactment of the driving of the last spike. This photograph was taken the morning following the actual event, to allow adequate daylight for the photo to be taken. C.E. LeMunyon photograph

 

The last spike was not made of gold. In the radio dramatization, the last spike was said to have been gold-plated steel. In reality, it may not have even been gold-plated. Also telling of the virtually low-key nature of the event – and the narrowly-focused all-business mindset of the Empire Builder himself – James J. Hill was deliberately nowhere to be seen at the completion of the railroad. One account of the time suggested he was nursing a sore shoulder. Other accounts have merely brushed off Hill’s absence from the last spike ceremony by describing him as not being one to stand on ceremony, and also by pointing to Hill’s desire to keep right on building. His notion of creating a transportation empire did not end with the completion of the rail line from Minnesota to the waters of the Pacific.

One of the first Great Northern freight trains to carry a full load of freight from the waters of Puget Sound to the eastern markets.

 

In only a little more than ten years after the completion of the main transcontinental line, Hill had two gigantic steamships built for transoceanic trade with the Orient. But that’s a story for another time.

A rare image of a smiling James J. Hill. Photo was likely taken in 1913 on the occasion of Hill's 75th birthday celebration. Author's collection

 When this episode of Empire Builders drew to a close, the Old Timer shared one of James J. Hill’s most oft-quoted sentiments.

“Most men who have really lived had in some shape their great adventure. This railway has been mine.” 
 -  James J. Hill, at the time of his retirement

 

 

 

Myth, Mistake, or Misconception - the recordings available to you (at this time)

Existing recorded episodes of Empire Builders

If you search the internet (including eBay) for episodes of the Empire Builders radio series, you will no doubt come upon a number of sites that list either 9 or 10 episodes, all from the final season of the series (Fall of 1930 to Spring of 1931). In one case, they offer ELEVEN tracks - but not 11 distinct episodes.

As yet, I do not know where or when, exactly, these episodes came to light. The best indication I’ve located so far is a comment made on Elizabeth McLeod’s web site (“Documenting Early Radio”) where she states the recordings were “discovered in the mid-1980s in the corporate archives of the Great Northern Railroad [sic].”

By the mid-1980’s, most corporate archives of the Great Northern Railway were held by the Minnesota Historical Society. The March 3, 1970, merger of the GN, NP, CB&Q, and SP&S railroad companies created Burlington Northern, Inc., which commenced operation of the Burlington Northern Railroad at that time. The officers of the new company had little use for the voluminous material these four companies had accumulated over many decades, so they offered an absolute gold mine to the Minnesota Historical Society in the 1970’s by turning over most of the GN and NP President’s Subject Files and many, many more documents and artifacts.

It is not beyond reason that this collection originally included some sound check recordings of Empire Builders, as Ms. McLeod says. I have contacted MHS on various occasions asking about such recordings, and they insist they have none – other than the 17-disc set of Victor records memorializing the Cascade Tunnel dedication. For that matter, the reference to GN corporate archives might indicate they were salvaged from an undignified fate (i.e., saved from a dumpster) by someone at the GN who recognized their value more than the upper management-types did.

But back to the internet resources for copies of the episodes that you can purchase or download…

First, let me say that I do NOT have copies available for sale or download. I do have copies for my personal use, but I am not interested in getting involved in distributing them. Having said that, you can in fact find the episodes by using Google to find sites where one can purchase or possibly download digitized copies of selected broadcasts of Empire Builders.

Here’s where things get really messed up.

Some sites claim they have ten episodes (not counting the Cascade Tunnel dedication of 1/12/1929). Some even claim they have ELEVEN episodes. They do NOT. Those claiming ten episodes typically have either duplicated the Armistice Day Reunion episode (calling it simply “Armistice Day”), or they have duplicated one of the two episodes typically referred to as “Bert Pond, Worrier and Baby” or “The Depression.” Eleven? That's two of the nine episodes duplicated.

Other than the Cascade Tunnel dedication broadcast of 1/12/1929, there are currently only NINE unique episodes out there. And nearly every one of them is named incorrectly. This is not to bash whomever it was who originally brought these to the market. That person had to give names to these episodes, and they didn’t have much to go by but the audio itself, which failed to title the episodes.

Also, not one site (at the time this is being posted – 1/26/2014) has correctly identified the sequential number of the episodes. They have also, in some cases, BADLY misrepresented some of the original air dates. Here is a review of the NINE extant Empire Builders radio broadcasts (excluding #290112, Cascade Tunnel dedication):

November 10, 1930

 

Please notice the air date was NOT November 11^th – Armistice Day (known since 1954 as Veteran’s Day http://www.va.gov/opa/vetsday/vetdayhistory.asp ). In 1930, November 11 fell on a Tuesday. Empire Builders always aired on Mondays. Hence, a program concerning Armistice Day in 1930 was deemed appropriate for the November 10, 1930, broadcast. One year earlier, on November 11, 1929, Armistice Day did in fact fall on a Monday, and the Empire Builders broadcast of that date was also a story concerning Armistice Day – a story of “Over There.” No recording of this broadcast exists.

Any CD or other digital recording purporting to have an episode called “Armistice Day” and another called “Armistice Day Reunion” most likely includes two copies of the same broadcast – that of 11/10/1930, correctly titled “Armistice Day Reunion.”

This episode is also wrongly claimed to have aired on 12/01/1930. On that date the episode was “The Williamson Survey,” a story of the Great Northern Railway’s completion of their Bieber extension through central Oregon and into California. Again, no recording of the 12/1/1930 broadcast exists.

Aside from the Cascade Tunnel dedication (#290112), the “Armistice Day Reunion” program (#301110) is the earliest existing recording of this series. It is also contains the earliest known recording of the voice of actor Don Ameche.

December 22, 1930

The correct title of this broadcast is “Attar of Roses.” Purveyors of this episode typically call it some variation of “Columbia River.”

By the way . . .

Betty White – Betty Marion White – beloved star of such TV shows as “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Golden Girls,” and “Hot in Cleveland” DID NOT APPEAR ON EMPIRE BUILDERS. Ever. More on this in a future blog.

December 29, 1930

This broadcast is correctly titled “New Year’s Story,” but most often you will see this episode listed as “Girl Leaves Boy for Singing Job in Seattle.” The real story title may seem unimaginative, but at least it’s not such a dreadful mouthful as what’s being used.

January 5, 1931

 “Prosperity Baby” is the correct title of the episode aired on January 5, 1931. Sources selling this episode call it “Bert Pond, Worrier and baby,” “Billion Dollar Baby,” or simply “The Depression.” This night’s story appears to have been recycled on May 18, 1931, as either “The Billion Dollar Baby” or “The Million Dollar Baby.” Some newspaper accounts in May of 1931, acting on early press releases, indicated this program would air on May 25, 1931, but the NBC program logs held by the Library of Congress indicate this story was swapped with another (“On Time Hank”), and actually aired on May 18^th.

January 12, 1931

Information updated/corrected January 17, 2016

This episode is typically reported by those selling copies of it as “Charlie’s Flue [sic]” or some variation of that, plus or minus “Montana Snow” and/or “A Job for Jimmy.”

The true title of this broadcast, if any such title was intended, is not known. In my own log, I have provided a topic for this broadcast, that of “telegrapher revived from coma.”

The correct title for this broadcast is "A Long Distance Call." I have written about this episode at this link: 310112 - A Long Distance Call

Oddly, this peculiar and not-very-believable story is said to have been based in fact.

January 19, 1931

Information updated/corrected January 17, 2016
 

This episode has a legitimate name, and it is NOT “Glacier National Park” as is typically cited. The correct name of this episode is “Thriller Films, Inc.” – a story written by W.O. Cooper. I really messed this one up - my apologies! I did locate a reliable title for this story - "Nan o' the Northwest."

January 26, 1931

Once more, the title of this broadcast that is typically provided is simply incorrect – no doubt a reasonable effort to create something meaningful based on the recording itself. I doubt I would have come up with anything better myself, given that obvious limitation.

However . . . the correct title of this program is “La Mariposa.” I do not speak Spanish, but I understand mariposa means “butterfly” in English. I like “The Butterfly” (but in Spanish) better than “Joaquin Murietta,” the usual title given incorrectly to this broadcast. Murietta is in fact a character in this story, and is a real figure from early California history.

Variations of the wrong episode title include “Juaquin Murietta” (Joaquin spelled with a “u” instead of an “o”), and an even more unfortunate variation, “Joachin Noriega.”

 

February 2, 1931

This episode does not seem to have suffered the fate of most of the others addressed in this post. The correct name of the episode is “James J. Hill” . . . although if we were to split hairs, the first episode to air as part of the weekly Monday night series, and retold in this broadcast of 2/2/1931, had a subtitle: “Background of Empire.”

Curiously, the continuity prepared for the 2/2/1931 broadcast has a significantly different preamble than what is captured in the existing recording. Last-minute changes were not uncommon, nor were ad-libs by the actors. But other than a short amount of discourse between the Old Timer and actresses Flynn and Husting, the 310202 script retained most of the 290114 script with pretty faithful replication.

February 16, 1931

Again, with nothing more than the recording to squeeze a title out of, this episode is currently represented by an incorrect title. This one typically gets “Spike Wants the Girl” as its title, although the correct title is simply “Glacier Park Dance Hall.”

There you have it: only NINE recordings available at this time, plus the Cascade Tunnel dedication broadcast. The operative words being “at this time . . .”

Stay tuned, Empire Builders fans.

Episode 2 - 290121 Part 2 of 3 in the story of James J. Hill

Click here to go to my earlier blog post for an explanation of the episode header

The second installment in a 3-part presentation on the life of James J. Hill dramatized the story of a rough but rewarding trip. In this story, Jim Hill traveled from St. Paul to Winnipeg (then still called Fort Garry) in March of 1870, when wintry conditions dictated travel by dog sled. Hill needed a guide to help him, and options were slim. He enlisted the aid of a man that he did not completely trust, who did ultimately turn against him in an attempt to steal the provisions he was hauling. Hill chased the man off, sending him in the direction of an outpost settlement.

James J. Hill, the "Empire Builder"

Hill continued on his way, where he had a chance encounter with Donald Smith, Chief Factor for the Hudson’s Bay Company and eventually knighted as Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal. These two men soon realized they shared a similar vision for the future of transportation in the Red River country. 

Sir Donald Smith, aka Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal

[In real life, these two men did meet, and became business associates. They were instrumental in the creation of the Canadian Pacific Railway. In 1871, Jim Hill was operating a steamboat, the Selkirk, and a year later formed the Red River Transportation Line.]

After a segue narrated by the Pioneer (Old Timer), the story of Jim Hill’s life continued with the telling of the delivery of the first steam locomotive to Winnipeg in 1877 – dubbed “Countess of Dufferin,” and named after the wife of Lord Dufferin, Canada’s governor-general.



Countess of Dufferin, first locomotive of the Canadian Pacific Ry.
Contributed by Arthur Grieve to the CPR Steam Locomotives web site.

A press release issued prior to the broadcast listed this network of stations over which the Empire Builders program was to air:

 

 

WEAF, New York	WEEI, Boston	WOW, Omaha
WTIC, Hartford	WJAR, Providence	WKY, Oklahoma City
WTAG, Worcester	WCSH, Portland, Maine	WTMJ, Milwaukee
WLIT, Philadelphia	WRC, Washington	WGN, Chicago
WGY, Schenectady	WGR, Buffalo	KYW, Chicago
WCAE, Pittsburgh	WTAM, Cleveland	KSTP, St. Paul
WWJ, Detroit	WEBC, Superior	KOA, Denver
KSD, St. Louis	WOC, Davenport	KHQ, Spokane
WMC, Memphis	WDAF, Kansas City	KOMO, Seattle
WBT, Charlotte	WHAS, Louisville	KGW, Portland, Ore.
KPRC, Houston	WSB, Atlanta	KPO and KGO, San Francisco
WFAA, Dallas	WOAI, San Antonio	KFI, Los Angeles

 

 

Myth, Mistake, or Misconception - an attempt to right the wrongs, one oops at a time

When you try to seek out information on the Empire Builders radio series, you won't find very much. There are a handful of web sites with some helpful information, there are a few places where dedicated researchers have posted the fruits of their diligent efforts to assemble snippets of newspaper blurbs, and there are many web sites devoted to Old Time Radio that have made well-intentioned but very abbreviated attempts to list known episodes of the series. There are some fairly recent magazine articles and even books on radio topics that include mention of the series. All of these efforts have been hampered by the overall dearth of information thus far revealed about this early advertising program, which seemed to evaporate into the ether of the early 1930's.

Whatever the reason - frustration, wishful thinking, lack of time to devote to the subject, limited degree of real interest in the topic, or even (gasp) sloppiness - quite a number of untruths and inaccuracies about this series abound.

I have no intention of attempting to wag a sanctimonious finger of remonstration at anyone (say that 3 times real fast). Let's try that again: I'm not blaming anyone. I don't intend to attempt to embarrass anyone. But I do want to put the record straight.

There are, in fact, so many "oops's" out there that I intend to address all that I am aware of over the course of multiple blog posts. In this post, the topic is:

 "Great Northern Railroad" versus "Great Northern Railway"

In the 1880's, Jim Hill was already very busy in the transportation business. One railroad charter that he obtained was that of the Minneapolis & St. Cloud Railroad. Using the liberal terms of this charter, he changed the name of the company in 1889 to the "Great Northern Railway" and proceeded to build his transportation empire from Minnesota to the west coast. It is said he chose this name largely because he admired the sound of it, as it was already in use in Ireland.

I'll say it again: the name of Hill's transportation company, which primarily operated a railroad, was the Great Northern Railway.



Great Northern Railway timetable from August of 1890.  Author's collection

NEVER, in the entire history of this railroad company (from its inception as the Great Northern Railway in 1889 until its inclusion in a merger of railroads that formed Burlington Northern on March 3, 1970) did this railroad EVER call itself the Great Northern Railroad. NEVER.

Ummm... well, okay, there is one exception. NO - wait, wait, wait... it was not the GN that called itself the Great Northern Railroad - it was the U.S. government! No kidding.

During the "Great War" (World War I as we called it later, once we began to number the damned things), the federal government saw fit to take over operation of all the major railroads in the United States to ensure efficient and rapid movement of men and materiel (supplies, weapons, vehicles, etc.). The United States Railroad Administration (USRA) started out retaining the "Great Northern Railway" name on timetables and other printed matter that they controlled, but in 1918 they actually changed the name of the railroad to "Great Northern Railroad" on their timetables.

Great Northern "Railroad" timetable (issued under control of the USRA). Author's collection.

The USRA relinquished control of the nation's railroads in March of 1920. One year later, the Great Northern Railway rolled out a brand new corporate logo - utilizing for the first time the mountain goat symbol that in one iteration or another would serve as the trademark identity of the company right up to the Burlington Northern merger in 1970.



Great Northern Railway timetable effective March, 1921. Author's collection

So. Are we clear about this? The name of the company that sponsored the Empire Builders radio series was the Great Northern Railway.

Don't make me come back there.

Documenting the broadcasts and my conventions for tracking them

It's really just an academic issue, I suppose, but how many episodes of Empire Builders aired? Was it 103, or 104, or some other number.

The stickler is the Cascade Tunnel broadcast of 1/12/1929. Clearly, that broadcast was a unique radio event. Only brief segments of the show originated from the NBC studios in New York. Speakers and performers were heard from many other remote locations during the one-hour event.

It would be simple to say the Cascade Tunnel program was a stand-alone broadcast event unrelated to the actual weekly series. It was a news event, whereas the weekly programs were dramatic sketches performed by an ensemble of actors accompanied by a small orchestra and a team of sound effects engineers. Well, except that they weren't - not all of them anyway.

As I will write about at a later time, there was another broadcast in the series that once again aired for one hour, and was almost entirely from a remote location, rather than from a studio. Yet another broadcast aired from Portland, Oregon. However, only the Cascade Tunnel broadcast aired on a day other than Monday, and it was not billed specifically as an Empire Builders show.

Then again, it was. Sort of. Among the several pamphlets and brochures distributed by the Great Northern Railway to either advertise or memorialize the Cascade Tunnel broadcast, one pamphlet had this to say about the planned sequence at the conclusion of the tunnel broadcast:

"More music by George Olsen and an announcement from the New York studios will bring this event to a close, the first of a number of nationally broadcasted programs sponsored by the Great Northern Railway. These will be on the air every Monday evening from 10:30 to 11:00 P. M. Eastern Standard Time, starting January 14th."

 

While this expression of the role of the Cascade Tunnel broadcast is not definitive, it does suggest that the railway saw a thinly veiled distinction between their one-hour program on January 12th and the succeeding broadcasts that began to air regularly on Monday evenings beginning two days later. In both cases, the programs were essentially created and paid for by the railway, and the expense was charged to the company's Advertising and Publicity accounts.

 

For the past couple of years, whenever I've had an opportunity to write about the Empire Builders or give presentations to groups, I've declared there was a grand total of 104 episodes of Empire Builders. However, at least for the sake of this blog, I am willing to concede the Cascade Tunnel program was distinctly different from the succeeding programs, or at least enough so that it should stand slightly apart from the weekly, Monday broadcasts. We'll call it 103 episodes of Empire Builders, plus an associated broadcast used at least in part to call attention to and officially launch the Empire Builders series.

 

If you were hoping I might get to a more salient point eventually, well, thanks for sticking it out with me this far. Here's the point, at least for the sake of this particular blog post. Every time I publish a post regarding one of the specific episodes of Empire Builders, I will use a sort of header that identifies the program with its Episode Number, Air Date, and either Title or Topic. Let's start with the colors - orange and green.

 

 

 

I wanted to use kind of a signature set of colors to set apart the episodic information banners, and the most well-known color combination in the land of All-Things-Great-Northern is a set of colors known in the biz as Omaha Orange and Pullman Green. For the purists (and believe me, they exist... in droves), the shades of orange and green that I'm using are probably not even remotely close to what many of them would choose. Meh. I think they look okay for this purpose, so there you have it.

 

Now on to some meatier stuff: the episode information. I have elected to utilize a numbering convention that is both simple and practical. The numbering represents the air date of the show, in the format YYMMDD. Ergo, the first Monday night broadcast, aired on January 14, 1929, is numbered "290114." Simple, eh? And practical. (And, if I'm not mistaken, pretty widely used in the OTR community already)

 

 

When you save documents on a computer (running Windows - don't know how Apple handles this), that numbering scheme automatically sorts the files in their proper chronological order. This is no small victory when tracking files representing over 100 broadcasts. But secondly, we all like to keep tabs on things like "which one aired first" and "was that episode the 24th or the 25th," etc., so I've also incorporated a simple sequential number.

 

The air date is self-explanatory, except that the air dates I'm documenting are based on the best available information that I've found (to date). I wasn't there in 1929 (or 1930... or even 1931) to attest personally that a specific program aired on a given date. Newspaper accounts of the time are instructive, but not 100% certain. Last minute changes sometimes happened and a program originally scheduled to air (and widely advertised as such) may have shown up on an entirely different night, or not at all.

 

 

My research (which I also plan to discuss in future posts) includes uncovering copies of continuities, press releases, internal corporate communications and letters between the GN and NBC, and NBC Log Books (which entail lists of "Daily Programs" for 1929, and then starting with 1930, "Corrected Traffic Sheets"). Taken in total, these sources give relatively good assurance of what was aired on any given date. It's just not 100% certain. More documentation may still come to light to call something into question. For now, though, I'd say we're pretty close (and a darned sight closer than after the efforts of anyone else that I am aware of. Just sayin').

 

Finally, what's up with the "Episode Title or [Topic]" header, you ask? Again, given the enormity of the various research resources that I have thus far been able to access, I have documented with reasonable assuredness the correct and intended title for many of the episodes. In those cases where I have as yet been foiled in my efforts to determine every story's title, I have provided a very brief description of the topic of the program. I have distinguished "topics" from "titles" by bracketing topics with, well, brackets. That's how you will know the difference.

 

 

If you should feel strongly (i.e., you've got something seriously close to what we might all refer to as documentation to back you up) that I've listed a [Topic] when in fact a legitimate title exists, by all means, please share. I am constantly hoping to learn more on this subject, even when that means exposing an error or misunderstanding on my part.