Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1908 — GIFFORD RAILROAD SOLD TO C. & E. I. [ARTICLE]

GIFFORD RAILROAD SOLD TO C. & E. I.

Coal Road Takes Over the Chicago & Wabash Valley Road and Will Pish Work to Gary. Over long distance telephone B. J, Gifford, talking from his home at Kankakee, 111., Sunday, confirmed the report that he had sold his railroad, the Chicago & Wabash Valley, with track from McCoysburg te the Kankakee river, and nine miles north of the Kankakee river, to the Chicago & Eastern Illinois, better known as the “Coal Road.” The terms for the deal were all complete and the money was to be paid Mr. Gifford this week, and it is said that he is to receive $475,000 for the road. It is the intention of the C. & E. I. to at once push the extension of the road from its present northern terminal on to Gary, where it will have connection with various roads running in all directions. ' ■ - :

The C. & E. I. and the Gifford roads have their crossing in Jasper county pt Zadoc, near Kniman, and the C. & E. I. crosses the Michigan City branch of the Monon at Wilders and parallels the Monon to LaCrosse. The C. & E. I. is the road that Rensselaer might have bad atone time and did not get, and if the Gifford road Is extended to the south as it doubtless eventually will be, we will have on each side of us the connections we should ourselves have had to all parts of the county, for had the Gifford road been built here it would have been extended to Remington long ago. It is not Rensselaer’s fault, to be sure, that it did not get the Gifford road and no one seems to have ever solved Mr. Gifford’s reason for not building his road • this wav after the l tax subsidy had been voted. The road would have had twenty-five timed the business it has bad if it had been, brought to Rensselaer and would doubtless have brought a much better price when it came to selling it.