Editing Jay Gould (section)

===Western railroads===
[[File:Jay Gould's Private Bowling Alley - Opper 1882.jpg|thumb|1882 cartoon depicting [[Wall Street]] as "Jay Gould's Private Bowling Alley"]]

After being forced out of the Erie Railroad, Gould started to build up a system of railroads in the Midwest and West. He took control of the [[Union Pacific]] in 1873, after its stock had been depressed by the [[Panic of 1873]], and he built a viable railroad that depended on shipments from farmers and ranchers. He immersed himself in every operational and financial detail of the Union Pacific system, building an encyclopedic knowledge of the network and acting decisively to shape its destiny. Biographer Maury Klein states that "he revised its financial structure, waged its competitive struggles, captained its political battles, revamped its administration, formulated its rate policies, and promoted the development of resources along its lines."<ref>Maury Klein, ''Jay Gould,'' (1966) p. 147</ref><ref>Maury Klein, "In Search of Jay Gould." ''Business History Review''  52#2 (1978): 166–199.</ref>

By 1879, Gould had gained control of two important Western railroads, including the [[Missouri Pacific Railroad]] and the [[Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad|Denver and Rio Grande Railway]]. He controlled {{convert|10000|mi}} of railway, about one-ninth of the rail network in the United States at that time. He obtained a controlling interest in the [[Western Union]] telegraph company and, after 1881, in the elevated railways in New York City, and he had a controlling interest in 15 percent of the country's railway tracks by 1882. The railroads were making profits and could set their own rates, so his wealth increased dramatically. Gould withdrew from management of the Union Pacific in 1883, amid political controversy over its debts to the federal government, but he realized a large profit for himself. 

In 1889, he organized the [[Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis]], which acquired a bottleneck in east–west railroad traffic at St. Louis but, after Gould died, the government brought an antitrust suit to eliminate the bottleneck control.<ref>''[[United States v. Terminal R.R. Ass'n]]''.</ref>