Editing James J. Hill (section)

===Entry into Gilded Era railroading===
During the [[Panic of 1873]], a number of railroads, including the [[St. Paul and Pacific Railroad]] (StP&P), went bankrupt. The StP&P was caught in an almost hopeless legal muddle.  Hill researched the StP&P for three years and finally concluded that it would be possible to turn a profit off the StP&P, provided that the initial capital could be found. Hill teamed up with [[Norman Kittson]] (the man he had merged steamboat businesses with), [[Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal|Donald Smith]],<ref name="martin">{{cite journal|last1=Martin|first1=Joseph E.|title=Titans|journal=Canada's History|date=2017|volume=97|issue=5|pages=47–53|issn=1920-9894}}</ref> [[George Stephen, 1st Baron Mount Stephen|George Stephen]] and [[John Stewart Kennedy]]. Together they not only bought the railroad, they also vastly expanded it by bargaining for trackage rights with the [[Northern Pacific Railway]]. In May 1879, the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railway Co. (StPM&M) formed—with James J. Hill as general manager. His first goal was to expand and upgrade even more.

Hill was a hands-on, detail-obsessed manager. A Canadian of Scotch-Irish Protestant ancestry, he brought in many men with the same background into high management.<ref>Claire Strom, "Among Friends: The Power of Ethnicity in the Great Northern Railway Corporation," ''Journal of the West'' (2009) 48#4 pp 11-17.</ref>  He wanted people to settle along his rail lines, so he sold homesteads to immigrants while transporting them to their new homes using his rail lines. When he was looking for the best path for one of his tracks to take, he went on horseback and scouted it personally. Under his management, StPM&M prospered. In 1880, its net worth was $728,000 (equal to ${{Inflation|US|728000|1880|fmt=c}} today); in 1885 it was $25,000,000, equal to ${{Inflation|US|25000000|1885|fmt=c}} today.

One of his challenges at this point was the avoidance of federal action against railroads. If the [[United States Government|federal government]] believed that the railroads were making too much profit, they might see this as an opportunity to force lowering of the railway tariff rates. Hill avoided this by investing a large portion of the railroad's profit back into the railroad itself—and charged those investments to operating expense.

[[File:James J. Hill.jpg|150px|thumb|Hill c. 1890]]