Distributed broadcast by the local interests of this route the map and itinerary had no small influence in turning the mass of overland immigration to Council Bluffs, where it crossed the Missouri and took the great Platte valley route. This route was up that valley to its fork to Salt Lake and California by way of the Humboldt, and to Oregon by the way of the Snake and Columbia rivers. This is today the route of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific to California and the LTnion Pacific to Oregon.

"In 1854, when Nebraska was organized, we moved to its frontier, continuing the explorations under the patronage of Messrs. Farnum and Durant. and obtaining all valuable information, which was used to concentrate the influence of the different railways east and west of Chicago to the support of the forty-second parallel line."

General Dodge then continues:

"In 1861 we discontinued- the railroad work because of the Civil War. The passage of the bill of 1862, which made the building of a transcontinental railroad possible, was due primarily to the persistent ef-

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

forts of Hon. Samuel R. Curtis, a representative in Congress from Iowa, who reported the bill before entering the Union service in 1861. It was then taken up by Hon. James Harlan, of Iowa, who succeeded in obtaining its passage in March. 1862."

In commenting upon how this road obtained its name, General Dodge narrates that various lines proposed had received the names of the "North Route," "Buffalo Trail," "South Route," but that in 1858 a bill was fostered that gave out the name "Union Pacific." One of the arguments advanced for the bill that eventually passed was that the route proposed would tend to hold the people of the Pacific coast in the Union. He adds :