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The Missouri Pacific Railroad (reporting mark MP), also known as the MoPac, was one of the first railroads in the United States west of the Mississippi River. The company came under control of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1982. On July 4, 1851, at St. Louis, Missouri, ground-breaking for the Pacific Railroad marked the beginning of what would later be known as the Missouri Pacific Railroad. The first section of track was completed in 1852. In 1865, it became the first railroad to serve Kansas City, after construction was interrupted by the American Civil War. In 1872, the Pacific Railroad was reorganized as the Missouri Pacific Railway by new investors after a railroad debt crisis. Because of corporate ties extending back to the Pacific Railroad, Missouri Pacific at one time advertised itself as being The First Railroad West of the Mississippi. From 1879 to 1915, Missouri Pacific was under the control of highly successful but extremely controversial New York financier Jay Gould. Gould developed a system extending through Colorado, Nebraska, Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana. In 1917 the line was merged with the St Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway (SLIMS) and reorganized as the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Missouri Pacific later acquired or gained a controlling interest in other lines in Texas, including the Gulf Coast Lines, International-Great Northern Railroad, and the Texas and Pacific Railway. The Missouri Pacific was a Class I railroad growing from dozens of predecessors and mergers, including the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway (SLIMS), Texas and Pacific Railway (TP), Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad (C&EI), St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway (SLBM), Kansas, Oklahoma and Gulf Railway (KO&G), Midland Valley Railroad (MV), Gulf Coast Lines (GC), International-Great Northern Railroad (IGN), New Orleans, Texas and Mexico Railway (NOTM), Missouri-Illinois Railroad (MI), as well as the small Central Branch Railway (an early predecessor of MP in Kansas and south central Nebraska), and joint ventures such as the Alton and Southern Railroad (AS). |