The Hill people said little about this project, but newspapers professed to believe that it was the intention to connect that line with the roads centering in Bridgeport. Besides providing a short and direct line across the continent, the read would pass through a good country the entire distance. The Hill interests maintain a line of steamers plying from Buffalo to Duluth, and another line from Seattle across the Pacific ocean. The road from O'Neill to Bridgeport will connect the two ends and provide a complete trans-continental transportation system.

Comment in the Omaha Bee and Lincoln State Journal indicated that the railroad company had the matter under advisement.

The State Journal said, among oilier things:

"The connection of the ( Weill line of the Burlington with the Billings line has been frequently discussed since the llill interests secured the Burlington. A number of years

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

ago a prominent Burlington official said it was the intention to connect the loose ends of the system north of the Platte river in a way that would afford commercial circulation."

Bridgeport-Kearney Link

After the building of the Guernsey line, for some years the Burlington used the Colorado & Southern and the Northwestern tracks to reach Casper. Later they built their own road and some heavy tunnel work was necessary in Platte canyon.

Bridgeport then began to anticipate the long deferred line connecting Bridgeport and Kearney, and the following appeared in the local press of the time :

"Every man and every team that can be crowded into the big tunnel work west of Guernsey is being rushed to the scene of activity and carload after carload of outfits and equipment are being shipped to that point. The Burlington is using every effort to push that work to completion. at the earliest possible date.