The San Francisco call. [volume], April 07, 1907, Page 7, Image 7

About The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913

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The Saa^ Frandsoo Srmday^ OaH
YOAKUM & EMPIRE BUILDER
THE ROMANTIC RISE OF A CHAIN BEARER TO THE CONTROL OF MORE
MILES OF RAILROAD THAN ANYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD.
FROM a rofimaa and chalnbearer a
few yean ago, tolling laboriously
for his day's wage upon a primitive
bit of steel track stretching be
tween two pioneer Texas towns, to the
management today of the greatest ag
gregate railroad mileage under any
single control in the .United States or
any other country — (such has-been the
phenomenal career of a man who now
looms large upon the horizon of the
great world of railroad and financial
enterprises. •
Quite unheralded this - man has re
cently gone to New York, where hi*
name is modestly lettered in the cor
ridor directory In the skyscraper at No.
71 Broadway — B. F. Yoakum;
It la a name not familiar to the
newspaper reader. Though he manages
more railroad mileage than Mr. Hill,
Mr. Harrlman or Mr. Gould, his name
thus far has been unheard jof jutside
of his own vast domain, his very exist
ence unguessed, save by that little 00
terie of wizards who sit within the
holy of holies of Wall street. The
famous Harrlman system, consisting of
the Union Pacific and the Southern Pa
cific, has 14,496 miles of trackage.' The
Rock Island-Frisco system and other
lines under B. F. Yoakum consist of
17.E00 miles.
In Wall street, however, the name of
B. F. Yoakum Is one to \u25a0 conjure with.
His stupendous projects are of absorb
ing concern, and If one crosses the
Mississippi and journeys through Mis-.
eourl, or Arkansas, or Colorado, or
Texas, or the new State of Oklahoma,
he will find that that name is an open
sesame to the door of every farm
house, of every rude settler's log cabin
or sod hut. He will find,' too, to his
great and ever increasing wonderment,
that he cannot traverse a square mile
of this vast territory that he does not
either see or hear or otherwise become
Impressed with the name and fame of
Toakum.
For B. F. Yoakum Is the constructive
and creative genius of the Southwest
just as James J. Hill has been the cor
responding genius of the Northwest.
What Hill has done and Is doing for
the great wheat-raising country tra
versed by the Great Northern RallroaJ,
B. F. Yoakum has done. Is doing and
going to do still further for that rich,
virgin and almost Illimitable territory
webbed by the Rock Island Frisco sys
tem. Like HIIL Yoakum did not wait
for the settler to come to Inhabit his
empire before he built his railroads; he
built and Is still building them through
a sparsely Inhabited country and then
Inviting the settler to follow. Yoa
kum, not the settler, is the pioneer of
the Southwest.
What Yoakum has accomplished
against terrible odds in the way of pio
neer railroad building is glgantlo and
will be briefly outlined, further on,
but what he Is going to do in the com-,
paratlvely near future is nothing short
of titanic. Indeed, one may. with pro
priety characterise his latest projects,
wb>* X "are bow well ender way. as truly
PrU-ivth«an. Prometheus It was who
gave to man the gift of fire; Yoakum It
it who la giving to the Illimitable ex
panse of Western and Southwestern
prairie net only a great transportation
system* but the precious boon of ar
tesian water, thus turning vast emm
heretorore commonplace !n agricultural
significance into territory as rich and
fertile as that of the Nile. Prometheus
with his hand turned the course of .the
mighty rivers and remodeled "at will
the seacoast'of the earth. That is what
Yoakum is doing with the gulf. coast
of Texas and with rivers which flow
above ground and with the mighty
streams which flow In subterranean
caverns six -hundred feet beneath the
earth's surface. 1 :
To drop the terms of mythology, B.
F. Yoakum has pinned his faith to two
splendid Creams of engineering skill
which, when completed and put in op
eration, are bound to have an almost
incalculable effect upon sot only the
development or the entire trans-Mls
slssippi country from Canada to Mex
ico and from the Gulf to the Pacific, but
upon the whole trade and commerce
of the United States as well. One of
these is a great ship channel from Gal
veston to Houston, which will make of
the Texas metropolis, now fifty miles
from the coast, a seaboard city and a
port of entry for a large percentage of
the immigrant laden ships that at pres
ent are landing tholr passengers at
the port of New York. This great un
dertaking Is now well under .way and
Is being rapidly pushed to completion,
and meanwhile Yoakum is working
equally fast in the construction of the
three railroads which he is building
Into Galveston and Houston so as to
be able to carry his' share of the alien
pioneers who will soon begin to land
at these ports far into. the fertile plains
and valleys of Texas * that ' are' now be
ing prepared; for them. The Idea Is to
attract the industrious agricultural im
migrant of . South Europe~a - type! of
Immigrant ; ideally , suited to' the - soil
and the development of the ; natural . re
sources of 'xexas— and to: divert ;the'
stream of Immigration that is now
pouring into the^port of« New; York at
the. rate of more than a million a year.
Under the present conditions our im
migration system ais based on an eco
nomio waste. The Immigrant who would
take up agriculture— and the vast per
centage comes to this country with that
hope — finds himself landed in New York
with little or » no'? money with which =tP
take him * out .Into the unsettled j West.
Tor .\u2666** itreat majority * there is noth
ing to do but stay here or drift to the.
equally crowded neighboring cities.
Their landing direct at a : gulf ;
port comparatively close to lands
which" they can either homestead or buy
very cheaply not only ,would be a great
economio saving to the \u25a0 Immigrants
themselves, but It would go far toward
solving what is more and more becom
ing a most serious 'social' and economio.
problem. Incidentally, too, it Is going
to help sustain a .Yoakum' prophecy that
10,000.0 00 people will : come ;' • to • % Texas \u25a0
within /; ten " years and \u25a0; there secure a
prosperity unobtainable' anywhere else
in the United States. ; ,^' L
• ; Of {all Mr. Yoakum's [\u25a0 plans . for : the
building up of the empire of the i South
west, the / one t nearest : his ;\u25a0 hear t— the
one. which makes the greatest appeal to
> his imagination— is • his ' proposed recla
mation of ; the valley of the Rio Grande
by means of irrigation. . J > v
\~. This .; territory,, extending "about 100
miles . from | the tip end of Texas I north
ward - alon s . the ; gulf coast,*' and \u25a0' about
an equal distance along the Rio Grande,';
and' now organized into the I counties;
1 of . Hidalgo " and Cameron, .was ; until t & : :
short time ago ( the home, of the cattle
barons,' who crafti!y,*Bpok» of 'lt" as
fit* only; for "cattle ; grazing.- Notwith
\u25a0; standing : the fact ' that 3 the soil X runs
from forty.ito seventy feet deep and is
as rich as that of , the • Nile, It had : until
•a \u25a0' few . years 5 ago been : : Impossible .to
utilize it for agricultural, purposes, for
tho reason ". that . it haa been : held ' in \u25a0 im
mense- estates by a ' handful of cattle
kings. On* ' ranch alone had 1,300,000
acres. '_\u25a0';.?':>-;, :,.;-': \u0084;-'- : \-.v:;..:v ; :,v^v:.:; ; : :!
\, Toakum: ran; a through, this
great^land;: from 'Corpus V\ Christ!? to
Brownsville ; as a starter.! He counseled ,
- and -' coaxed .. and demonstrated % to ',: the
ranch holders that .their,; possessions
could be made tar more profitable to '
them' provided v the > : country - were di
\u25a0 vlded \u25a0 up ' fhto n ownership ,; of forty ; and
eighty, acre garden truck patches, with
ample artesian and river, water for irrl-
• gation. vfhey ; believed him, and"an;era
1 of ? great ; prosperity J set in '-• for •a" region i
I which ; before had been '\u25a0 given up wholly
; to- thousands ' and thousands of head of,
cattle, y-"-. H" :'-';':'-\u25a0 •:""\u25a0\u25a0 ; ; * \u25a0.--;';\u25a0
*. ' The fact that I sugar cane raised .In
'\u25a0 this k wonderful : coastal plain ; country
: took t_ the first '\u25a0 prise at V the _Sf Louis
Exposition, excelling \ both -in ; size and '
in* the: amount of saccharine matter^ the
best "\u25a0 product of ,' Cuba" and Louisiana.
;.was ;/a; strong; argument a with :
: and ; his ' associates \u25a0. to I populate and de
,'velop the territory, for economio reasons.
as rapidly, as possible.
\u25a0 "\u25a0• The \ fact > that ; : ; the cane needed ( re
planting i: only ' once ; in ten years,'; as
against three in most other countries;
that t' the - yield,- was '; more than 6000
'. pounds : of ' milled;; sugar: to the acre,
twithout 4 Bpeclal ? cultivation or irriga
tion; that an onion crop would yield
$600 an aero and carrots $450, and other
\u25a0' remarkable ?' figures » for ; - garden - truck.l
'[ warranted i Mr^vYoakum ; In * attempting \u25a0
the most stupendous piece of irrigation
.: ye t taken 1 in : the • States byi prl-^
• vate capital. % He lwas^to .: make South-;
'( western /.Texas ; the -"sugari bowl"i"and
Uho; "vegetable V garden" 6t the?contl-i
\VLVnV~./"x:.:J:. -':"-' ::•". \u25a0, -I- :\u25a0\u25a0.'*\u25a0\u25a0\u25a0'\u25a0 ' '.'.'\u25a0 '\u25a0" • '":\u25a0"' '
."iThe .water?, which- will .irrigate "'the;
~ first • 250.000 1 acresi! will ? be; supplledtby^
T the \ Rio \u25a0Grande- itself 'and by ; it \ alone.
I This iYoakum * discovered I could k not 'be
,:dohe|,wlth:3uriiqueirebonomy^owlnffgto"
I the. remarkable*; topography of the coun
l try! to':bo : Irrigated;* for? the \u25a0 valley "; of!
f the ; Rlo".Grande^ Unlike | the I valleys ; of '
Vother] great | rivers,^ In" Its | lowers reaches
drains , away \l rom and ; not toward ; the
stream. .Therefore' all that is necessary
ito carry \ the ' abundant * waters \of this
river into the thirsty valley Ms a single
lift of from eight to thirty^ feet' That
small application of energy on the part
of the ..various ; pumping plants now be
ing established Is all that \is necessary
to place water at any and all points in
thefvalley/' GraVlty :'• does the r rest.
Pumping stations are now being rapid
ly Installed at necessary points along
the \ river and." operated .from a__ central
power -station which '; the • irrigation;
: company,: has now ; almost 1 completed \ at'
Mercedes, the prospective metropolis of
the young>m'pire.; i From Mercedes will
Issue a network of canals, extending in
every*,; dlreotioh andj 1 measuring * more
than . three hundred miles iin aggregate
length. •'-•; ,;. •,'-; :-.. •; " : , ; : '\u25a0\u25a0 ' f . -J\i\u0094 '..
A Work - : was c begun op^the \ project on
May 1, * 1906," and ' has jbeen; progressing
steadily ever since. By next year thou
sands of acres will be. Irrigated. There
are over, a million acres which will ul
timately ' ;: be'ibrought .'. under I irrigation
I ln^ this ' section, t and i when*; the 1 plan ;. is
f ullyj developed *i t Vwlll stand ; as t one ) of
1 the greatest; irrigation iof; the
world.T ?As a project ; It far XeiceedS;. the
Federal f eclamation \u25a0 in' the vicinity; of
Yuma; ; Arizona,lwhcre . 30,000 • acres are.
; being J placed "\u25a0„ under 't canal,' '.with the
Colorado -River: as the; aource'of water
' Bupply.V \u25a0 * 5 \u25a0 i .'^"-- 1 K ,~:"' \u25a0;'-". : '''"- " - 'r'-'iv' ;.-*\u25a0' v" -
>llt is into this Rio Grande {Valley par
tlcularly that ? Yoakum | hopes} to : divert
1 the! sturdy South , European '•_ immigrant,
\u25a0 bred ? to? generations "of ;„ vine
and i citrus fruit f culture. '? r Fbr « not" only
iis the J Rib ; Grande jiyaJley;- capable of
\u25a0 producing I fabulqus^re turns ' In sjthe^way,
of sugar, but \ it offers ievenj greater] In
•ducements to the raising: of * oranges,
• lemons, grapes, dates, figs, cotton, corn
and truck ;crops, all of .which : are; today,
being cultivated hire In a limited way,
with -returns .per acre running from
$100 to $800, depending upon the na
ture of < the . crop and the amount and
distribution of the rainfall. The inevi
table uncertainty of raising crops when
obliged to depend upon the rainfall will
be entirely eliminated by irrigation,
and in this ' subtropical climate there
will never again be a question of ob
taining maximum crops of whatever
may be planted. The . region is 1000
miles nearer the great Eastern markets
than -. California. The climata ils finer
and the soil far more fertile. ,« It \u25a0 has
n6t the aridity of. the fruit growing
lands of Southern California. .
. The man Yoakum, who conceived and
is executing it all, is himself a Texan,
and the fact that circumstances have
at last obliged him .to come to New
York and identify himself with the
coterie of railroad magnates, of which
he' has for years been one of tbe.blg
glst, makes him none the less a. Texan
both in spirit and in appearance. Ho
is a I big man,' standing six feet one,
and Is broad-shouldered proportion
ately. His ;ey«s ;'. are i blue gray . and
eagle-like In their shrewdness.; "When
on this side of the Mississippi River
he wears a plain black derby hat. bat
nobody; en: <the Other .side ev«r lav
him in, aught, but the great, broad
brimmed, soft black Ifelt \of Texas
tradition.-: He was born near Tehunaca,
In Limestone County, forty-eight years
ago,; the *son ;of i a country physician
who t was one of t the pioneers of Texas.
His uncle, Henderson Yoakum, a well
known*; lawyer In those days, < was \u25a0 the
author,: of the . first < authentic history
of the State of Texas. When Benjamin
Franklin ;Yoakum was ; a" small boy his
father, abandoned "the practice of medi
cine' to \u25a0 become president -of the • Cum
berland Presbyterian College •• at La
riasa, and it was *tbe_;f amily., hope , that
the boy^ should become* a minister.
The '\u25a0 bby/r however, even at that \u25a0 time
was dominated by >a ; single Idea. To
be> an? engineer,': a railroad j man, was
his "anibitipnVf^it : stood in his ' youthful
mind for ail' that 'was great and manly.
He began his earnest life as a rodman
oh • a .railroad "surveying . party. „ It was
not long :beforef.he. commanded that
party, T but Ihe gained the \u25a0 position by
earnest ."work. ' \u25a0 \ -
L-i His > first job was on. the International
and Great /Northern, ; which was I Just
then * building r a , line . Into ' Palestine,
Texas/ * •-. -h : >V"
He has been in the railroad ? business
ever since. '*j From a - rodman » he passed
through the various stages of the con
struction :\u25a0 department . and "gained '. an
extended experience with various rail
roads ; all over the : State." Then ; he be
came a land boomer, or Immigration
agent, for the Gould lines. In that
capacity he attracted the attention of
Mr. Hoxle, the founder of the Missouri
Pacific, and was employed by him a*
the immigration agent. He associated
himself .with Uriah Lott. and In 1134
he built his first railroad, the San
Antonio and Aransas Pass, from Waco,
In* the center of the State, straight
' through the Gulf of Mexico. "When D.
B. Robinson became president he mads
Yoakum his assistant. In this capacity
.\u25a0he did so well that in 1893, when Robin
son went to the Santa Fe. he took
Yoakum with him and put him In
charge of the Texas division of that
road as general manager. *In 1197
Robinson became president of . the
Frisco lines and took Yoakum with
him as vice president and general man
ager. Two years later Mr. Robinson
died and Yoakum succeeded him in the
. presidency.
At that time the Frisco system com- .
prised only 1130 miles. It now has a
mileage of 6013. Two years ago It
allied Itself with the Rock Island lines.
Yoakum Is chairman of the executive
committee, which has control of more
than 17.000 miles of railroad, making It
the largest system that Is or ever was
/under the personal Influence of one
man. These railroads and their tribu
taries are spoken, of everywhere famil
iarly as the "Yoakum lines."
Mr. Yoakum. ls not. buying up rail
roads' and creating a trust; he is build-
Ing railroads. He is not seeking to es
tablish a monopoly for any one Unet
he is. on the contrary, trying to make
two or more railroads penetrate into
territory where there is as yet but one,
or perhaps none at aIL
It should -be understood, that day by
day and week 'by week, each and every i
one of the "Yoakum lines" is being ex
tended and its mileage multiplied just
as fast as the slight grading over the
rich alluvium of this country can be
accomplished and the steel rails laid.
During the last eight years Mr. Yoa»
kum has planned and carried on the
construction of 3000 miles of railroad.
-at a cost, with equipment, of more than
$40,000 per mile, which. Is more new
miles of railroad than have been built
by any other man in America. There Is
' now under Construction by him in Texas
. Louisiana - and Oklahoma more new
construction than is being done by any
other interest (the; 800 miles of, th«
Western Pacific under, construction by
I Mr. George Gould being the next larg
est new mileage now being built). All
this construction has . been through a
section of country which has needed
the new railroad to aid In Its develop
- ment. and has been accomplished by
Mr. Yoakum in a quiet way and with
little fuss.
To complete and round up the system
of railroad building by which he hopes
to attract millions of agricultural and
industrial people to the West and
Southwest within the next decade, Mr.
Yoakum has comprehensive plans. He
expects to construct 4000 miles of.addi
tional. tracks. St. Paul, Minn., and
Watertown. ' S. D.^ are now the termini
of the Rock Island-Frlaco lines in the -
North; El Paso and Denver, in the West.
and New Orleans and Brownsville, Tex.,
in the South. The Toakum lines will
"give through track* from St. Paul to
.New Orleans,' to Brownsville and to SI
Paso, .Tex. From Brownsville, the -
southernmost town In the United
States, at the mouth of the Rio Grande,
there is now completed a, line along
-the Gulf coast, northward to Galveston.
214 miles. .
This , line, .. known as the Gulf Coast
Liner constitutes one of the most strik
ing-examples of Mr. Yoakum'a empire
building: and of his faith in the future
of the Rio Grande Valley, which it Is
' the purpose .to develop now * that it is
possible to make it highly productive
by; Irrigation.
-. ; It used to be a standing Joka to say
all that' was needed to make Texas < a \u25a0\u25a0
pleasant place to live in was society
and water. "If I owned hell and Tex**,
- I'd, rent Texas and . live In hell." "Phil"
Sheridan la credited as saying..
r "He ' would ' not say so •today," de
clared B. F. Toaknm. .'"Texas now ha»
\u25a0 society, a-plenty and It has water,- too,"