(birds chirping) - "Ask any settler in some part of the West why he immigrated, and he'll invariably point you back to the beguiling road, a pamphlet, a fevered folder, an enthusiastic agent."

Ray Stannard Baker.

The Century Magazine, 1908.

(soft music) - [Narrator] In the first new decade of the 20th century, the United States experienced its greatest demographic transformation as more than eight million immigrants arrived on its shores, more than double the number in the previous decade.

Fueling this migration in part was the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909, which doubled the amount of land homesteaders could claim.

- And so Hill brought boatloads of people over from the old world and gave them a chance no one else had ever given them.

In Russia and Ukraine, they had been serfs, and had no real future in life but to continue in that mode.

What Hill was really speaking to was the American dream of betterment.

If not for yourself, then for your children.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Land seekers stood in line for hours at courthouses and land offices throughout the country.

Twice a month, the Great Northern offered tickets that were discounted by nearly half.

In St. Paul, Adelia Glover was just 21 when she convinced her mother and two brothers to move to Montana.

- "The Great Northern Railway was putting out great ads and making special rates for people who were going to take a carload of goods or stock.

When we arrived in Big Sandy in 1912, there were about 100 people living there, but after these homesteaders kept coming in, it was soon built up with several different businesses."

Adelia Glover.

- "During six days of last week, the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific took out of St. Paul and Minneapolis 20,000 people who intend to settle in the states traversed by these roads.

The vast empire is filling up with population as never before."

James J. Hill.

(upbeat music) (gentle music) - [Narrator] In July of 1904, James J. Hill took a much needed vacation after losing the Northern Securities Antitrust case, returning to Canada to go salmon fishing.

Six years earlier, the Canadian government wanted to honor Hill for his work establishing the Canadian Pacific Railway by naming a library after him.

He asked if he could instead purchase frontage along the St. John River in Eastern Quebec.

By 1901, he had secured the rights to 30 miles of the river.

And in short time, work began on a lodge, an ice house, cookhouse and canoe storage.

- Having grown up there, he never lost his connection to Canada.

And he just loved being with family and friends and walking around the camp.

And that was just something he adored.

- And since he leased the river from the government of Quebec, it was his to fish and no one else's.

- [Narrator] On his first trip there in 1900, Hill brought his sons, Louis and Walter.

They fished for nine days and caught more than 3,000 pounds of salmon.

The fish were measured and meticulously logged before being frozen and sent to friends, family, and politicians.

The following summer, he invited his old fishing buddy, Grover Cleveland, to join him.

To reach the remote camp, Hill would set sail on his 240 foot steam powered yacht named "Wacouta."

- The yacht would not sail until he got telegrammed that the salmon were running.

He didn't wanna be up there and waste any days.

- [Narrator] News of the salmon running would launch a whirlwind of activity, led by Hill's head porter, Robert Minor.

He was responsible for hiring the yacht's crew as well as a full staff of cooks, servants and guides.

Born in 1863 in the slave state of Louisiana, Minor, like many African Americans, found jobs on the railroad, working as porters and valets.

He began working for the Great Northern at age 32, and within a couple of years, became the head porter of Hill's private car, the A-18.

The Minor family lived in the Rondo neighborhood of St. Paul home to many African Americans who were denied purchasing real estate in other areas of the city.

Minor's role put him at Hill's side for more than 20 years.

Their friendship was such that he honored Hill by giving his son the middle name Jerome, who would go on to become the chief surgeon at the Houston Negro Hospital.

For more than a decade, Minor would accompany Hill every summer to St. John and saw firsthand how fond Hill was of his time spent in the outdoors.

- "My trip to the salmon river did me Lots of good, and I feel well and strong.

The last three years have been the hardest of my life and I'm looking forward to a time when I can lay down most of the hard work."

James J. Hill, 1904.

- [Narrator] Laying down the hard work, though, would have to wait.

An ocean away, Hill looked to extend his empire to the Orient.

- James J. Hill was not just a railroad man.

He was a transportation man.

- Hill wanted to trade with the world and he could see the enormous population in other parts of the world eager for the commodities that the United States could provide.

- For 10 years, he has spent more money than the government, sending competent men to Japan and China to study the needs of those countries.

He knows more about Oriental trade than any man I ever saw."

Grover Cleveland.

- [Narrator] Hill partnered with the Nippon Yusen Kaisha shipping line to establish a link between Yokohama, Japan, and his two transcontinentals in the Puget Sound.

Several years earlier, in 1896, the first ship contracted by Hill docked in Seattle.

- The arrival of the Miike Maru was a citywide event.

The docks were jammed with people, there were bands.

People were cheering.

- "The yells of thousands of people on the docks and the blowing of every steam whistle for five miles along the waterfront celebrated the glad event and welcomed the Oriental visitor of the east to the Occident."

The Seattle Times.

- It was extraordinary, and of course it wasn't the first ship to ever arrive from Japan.

But what Hill had organized was a scheduled, dependable, reliable, transpacific steamship line that cemented the relationship between Asia and Seattle.

- [Narrator] The ship carried 253 Japanese passengers and 488 tons of freight, that included tea, furniture and silk, that would be hauled to merchants across the country.

But Hill needed to fill his ships heading West.

- He really was looking for more markets for wheat.

He thought that people over in Asia actually wouldn't eat rice if they were given the choice.

- Hill believed if in a single province of China, if the people there would consume one ounce of wheat a day, that they would buy 50 million bushels of wheat.

- [Narrator] Applying his notion of greater tonnage and lower rates to the seas, Hill established the Great Northern Steamship Company and commissioned the construction of two colossal ships, The Minnesota and Dakota.

Completed in April of 1903, the Minnesota was longer than two football fields and could carry 1,400 passengers and 28,000 tons of freight.

Jim, Mary and their daughter, Clara, were happy to be on hand to christen the ship.

Just as he had done for the timber industry of Washington, Hill offered extremely low shipping rates to the flour mills in Minnesota, increasing the state's flour exports by 67%.

Hill was soon supplying Asia with copper from Montana and apples from Washington.

He then looked to the south for his next export.

- Hill offered to send the Japanese cheap American cotton and deliver it to them free if they would try it.

- [Narrator] Within two years, the south was shipping 20% of its cotton to Asia.

The chairman of Seattle's Chamber of Commerce stated, "More has been done by the Great Northern to open up, develop and extend our transpacific trade than by all other agencies combined."

- He not only changed trade, he changed the way the world worked.

- [Narrator] With rates cut to the bone, Hill knew it would take some time before his maritime venture would turn a profit, but he pushed on, calling his effort to expand foreign markets a philanthropic endeavor.

Despite Seattle's growing importance as an international port, its residents were embarrassed by the depot that greeted its railway passengers.

The Seattle Daily Times called it "a disgrace to the city of 100,000 people."

- Seattle had visions of metropolitan grandeur.

She felt she deserved a proper depot.

- [Narrator] Hill and civic leaders agreed to locate a depot at the south edge of town, requiring a tunnel beneath the city.

In 1903, crews began digging from both ends.

Excavating an average of eight feet per day, it would become the tallest and widest railway tunnel in the country.

The dirt extracted from the tunnel was transported to the south end of the city, filling in the tide flats and creating new downtown real estate.

By 1906, the new Great Northern depot rose above its environs.

Designed with a nod to the campanile on the Piazza San Marco in Venice, King Street Station was the tallest structure in the city.

(soft music) - [Narrator] Continuing to focus on the Northwest, Hill wanted to add Oregon and its vast stands of timber to his empire.

He announced his intentions to build a line Southwest from Spokane, travel along the north bank of the Columbia river, to Portland, and then on to the Pacific.

But he would again have to contend with Edward Harriman, whose Union Pacific already traveled along the south bank of the Columbia.

In January of 1906, a crew of 1,700 men and 400 horse and mule teams began construction of Hill's Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway.

Harriman did everything in his means to impede Hill's progress; purchasing land along Hill's route and filing multiple lawsuits over rights of way.

But time after time, judges ruled in Hill's favor.

After spending the equivalent, today, of nearly $1 billion, the North Bank Railroad was completed in 1908.

- The North Bank Railroad not only gave him operating rights into Portland, which was significant, but it also gave him a strong hold from which he could jump across the Columbia and then into central Oregon and down south.

- [Narrator] To get to central Oregon, however, Hill would be faced with one final challenge from Edward Harriman.

Hill's second oldest son, Louis, had proved himself to be a capable executive and was now president of the Eastern Railway.

While living in Duluth, Louis had become interested in the discovery of iron ore deposits in the Mesabi Range.

Over the next few years, he convinced his father to purchase more and more mining property, accumulating 67,000 acres.

In 1906, Hill established the Great Northern Iron Ore Properties, which purchased all of the Hill family's land at face value.

Hill then did something no one could ever have predicted.

He divided up the shares of the iron ore company and gave them as a gift to Great Northern shareholders.

The public was stunned.

- "A great many people seem unable to realize that a man could hand over an immense property of that kind.

Well, I did it.

I preferred to have the shareholders have whatever there was in the transaction."

James J. Hill, February, 1907.

- [Narrator] Cynics argued that Hill would still profit as a major shareholder of the Great Northern, but in truth, he had sold all but 7% of his stake to finance his lines in Oregon.

The demand for iron ore soon soared with the growing production of automobiles and the rise of steel supported skyscrapers in Chicago and New York.

By 1911, hauling iron ore accounted for 50% of the Great Northern's freight business.

- I think being able to, together with his son, Louis, understand what the potential was of the Minnesota iron range, was a huge part of their legacy when no one else was able to recognize it.

- [Narrator] Great Northern Iron Ore Properties signed a long term lease with J.P. Morgan's U.S. Steel, that was one of the largest industrial contracts of its day.

Over the lifespan of the trust, Hill's iron or properties generated more than $560 million for Great Northern shareholders.

Hill had essentially given away a half billion dollars.

In testimonies and letters to his closest friends, it was clear there was no other business decision that ever gave him so much pure satisfaction.

(upbeat music) In the early 1900s, President Roosevelt ushered in progressive legislation to protect workers and establish food and drug standards.

Legislators also continued to push for more effective regulation of the transportation industry.

- We had many small shippers who were complaining that because they weren't able to ship in bulk, they could not get rates as cheap as the larger shippers.

- Many in the Northern Rockies, particularly in Spokane, were not fond of Hill for the short haul-long haul discrimination in rates.

- If you ordered something from Sears and Roebuck in Chicago and you lived in Spokane in Eastern Washington, it cost you more than if you lived in Seattle several hundred miles further west.

- The small shippers, what they lacked in the volume of their shipping, they made up for with the volume of their votes.

- [Narrator] President Roosevelt heard them loud and clear.

In 1907, he signed the Hepburn Act, giving the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to set maximum railroad rates.

- Now, Hill was in trouble on this because rate discrimination and discounts were what gave Hill his entree into many markets.

- Originally, he had the idea of shipping flour to China at 45 cents a ton.

The Interstate Commerce Commission said, "no," they wouldn't let him charge that low rate.

This was enormously frustrating for Hill.

- "I undertook to find a market for Minneapolis flour in the Orient.

Then along came the Interstate Commerce Commission and directed us to set new rates, so I simply withdrew.

Last year, these flour shipments to China were 10,000 tons.

This year, they are nothing."

James J. Hill.

- And within a year or two, our exports to Japan and to China had dropped 40%.

- And so it all came to a rather sorry end.

- [Narrator] Hill had lost all enthusiasm for his transpacific venture.

The last straw came when the Dakota, carrying nearly 7,000 tons of freight, sank a mile off the coast of Japan in 1907.

The Great Northern Steamship Company was drowning in debt, forcing Hill to shutter the entire operation.

- Hill's vision was really somewhat ahead of his time.

It really wasn't a vision that would come to full fruition until the 1960s.

(wind whooshing) - [Narrator] Settlers from the previous decade had claimed the most fertile farmland, leaving a patchwork of less desirable homesteads for those who came in this next wave of migration.

The western third of the Dakotas to central Montana was dubbed by Lewis and Clark, the 'Deserts of America.'

- William T. Sherman, Civil War general, said that "the American Northwest was as bad a piece of land as God made."

- Once you get beyond the hundredth Meridian, it's a kind of a dicey world out there.

- One of the things that the northern railroad builders had to overcome were the prejudices that these lands would never grow crops because they were too far north, they were too cold.

The winters were too bitter.

- [Narrator] Turning this semi-arid region into farmland presented enormous challenges.

Expensive irrigation projects were one solution and dryland farming was another.

- Basically what dryland farming is, is the idea that in areas of insufficient moisture, the theory goes, if you plow in a certain way, if you prepare the soil in a certain way, it allows moisture that's in the soil to be conserved.

- [Narrator] Dryland farming methods had been used for some 30 years, but rarely in the varying climates and soil conditions in this region of the country.

After several experimental plots in the Dakotas and Montana proved successful, state officials were optimistic that science could prevail over nature.

Hill wasn't convinced.

And at his own expense, he leased 1,000 5-acre plots from farmers along the Great Northern line, and then paid them to conduct various agricultural experiments.

At his home on Summit Avenue, 12 train cars loaded with carefully labeled sacks of dirt, each from different regions of the country, were delivered to his backyard greenhouse.

Agriculturalists were hired to conduct comparative studies in an effort to see which soil enrichments and different strains of seeds would yield the greatest results.

The momentum behind dryland farming continued to grow as scientific journals touted its success.

Montana real estate companies and the railroads all launched massive campaigns to spread the gospel.

- A lot of Montana was settled on the basis that dryland farming was gonna be a successful way to farm.

- [Narrator] As Hill became more frustrated by the federal government's lack of progress with its irrigation projects, it wasn't long before the Great Northern joined the chorus.

- He came to the belief that indeed much of Western North Dakota and Eastern Montana could be as productive as any other place on the planet.

- [Narrator] For the equivalent of $600, a family could rent a freight car from St. Paul to Montana.

The car was often packed with a temporary shelter, building supplies, fence posts, grain, chickens, and horses.

If the car contained livestock, the father could ride for free and would often sneak his son inside.

At the end of their journey, settlers would hire a railroad agent or a locator who would help them find their property and unload their belongings.

In Montana alone, 82,000 homesteaders claimed one third of the state's land over the next decade.

Locals referred to the newcomers as "sod busters" and "honyockers," German slang for chicken chasers.

As a welcome gift, the Great Northern gave settlers enough free seed to plant six acres of crops and paid them $10 for each acre sown.

During the winters, Hill drastically cut rates on coal and hay so farmers could afford to warm their homes and feed their livestock.

And after a summer frost had damaged crops, he established an early warning system through the telegraph to inform farmers to set out smudge pots.

Both of Hill's transcontinentals sent special train cars to towns along his lines, advertised as agricultural colleges on wheels.

Each one had educational displays and experts on hand who taught farmers the latest practices.

- He was farsighted in that regard.

It was self-interest of course, get traffic on the railroad.

How to do it, make your service territory as productive as possible.

- [Narrator] While the majority of settlers were young couples or small families, the Homestead Act also allowed freed slaves and single women to apply for land.

By 1910, nearly 1,800 African Americans had settled in Montana.

Bertie Brown was one of those who claimed land in Lewistown supplementing her income by raising Leghorn chickens and selling what was rumored to be the best moonshine in the county.

Unmarried, divorced, or widowed women accounted for an estimated 18% of the land claimed in Montana.

- "Some of my relatives back in Iowa thought I was mentally deranged when I announced to them that I was gonna take my little boy and move to Montana.

They could not understand how a lone woman could ever expect to get along out in that wild country as they termed it.

I built a two story frame house on my claim, a barn, chicken house, dug a well, fenced all the land and 21 acres is under cultivation.

I consider this the land of unlimited opportunity."

Mattie Cramer, Malta, Montana, 1913.

- [Narrator] After Mattie's story was published in the Great Northern bulletin, she received over 300 letters from farmers looking to come west, three of which included marriage proposals.

(soft music) In June of 1909, James J. Hill publicly announced that he had no intention of building into central Oregon.

Newspapers, now more savvy to his methods, knew that the timber of central Oregon was too big a prize for Hill to ignore.

- Jim Hill's interest in central Oregon goes back a number of years before he laid any track.

He made his deals with the lumberman that he knew back in Minnesota.

"I will build this railroad first.

And then you bring your industry with your abilities and your capital in here to tap the wealth of timber."

- [Narrator] Hill quietly acquired the Oregon Trunk Railway and mapped a route that ran south from the Columbia River for 150 miles along the Deschutes River to Bend, Oregon.

To lead the effort, Hill needed a proven and trusted individual and rehired John Stevens.

Four years earlier, it was Hill's recommendation to President Roosevelt that helped Stevens land the position as the chief engineer of the Panama Canal, now under U.S. control.

In just two years, Stevens had set the canal on a course for completion and then resigned.

His successor called him one of the greatest engineers who ever lived, and the Panama canal, his greatest monument.

Now in central Oregon, Stevens posed as a wealthy fly fisherman to quietly purchase land along the Deschutes River.

Harriman didn't take the bait and immediately chartered the Deschutes Railroad Company to build a line on the opposite bank of the river, sparking what would be known as "the last of the Great Railroad Wars."

- There's no question, Hill and Harriman were fiercely competitive.

Both men were after the same goal of reaching central Oregon first.

Harriman was desperate to retain control over all of Oregon.

Hill on the other hand, wasn't about to let that happen.

- [Narrator] Building railroads on opposite banks of the Deschutes River defied logic, but the intensely competitive nature of both men would not allow either to yield.

- Any one railroad would be challenged to go down the Deschutes.

You take two railroads going down the same canyon, and now you're not able to swap the sides.

And so each side, when they get to an impenetrable obstacle, have to figure out a way to penetrate it because you can't just jump over, because guess what?

There's a competitor building his railroad over there.

- The battle began in the courtrooms, where it became clear that this was more than just a railroad war, it was a bout between two towering egos.

- "This is regarded here as the first move in a Titanic struggle between Harriman and Hill for control into interior Oregon."

The Bend Bulletin, 1909.

- We have to compare people like James Hill and Edward Harriman with medieval barons who would send their armies out to fight over territory.

- [Narrator] The rivalry trickled down to the work sites where opposing construction crews were often living and building within yards of each other.

Anything crews could do to impede the other's progress was fair game; jumping wagons carrying food supplies, rolling boulders down onto work sites and tossing dynamite at each other's camps, creating week long delays.

In one instance, Harriman spent weeks building a supply road across a ranch, but days later, when his caravan of wagons arrived, they were met by Steven's contractor, Harry Carleton, and his 75 Italian laborers, standing armed behind fence they had built to block the road.

Carleton's men forced the wagon drivers to turn back.

Tensions escalated when Harriman's crew returned, this time with a judge and sheriff, who ordered the opening of the gate.

- "I gave orders to my men to stop the team.

Why the next I knew, the Italians pulled the sheriff and his deputies off their horses.

The judge was bounced around in the dust and the Italians unhitched the horses and pulled the harnesses off.

There were horses running wild all through the sagebrush."

Harry Carleton.

- [Narator] Carleton was arrested, but later released when it was learned that Harriman's men had no agreement with the rancher to build the road.

And that Stevens had actually secured rights to the land a month earlier.

Real estate speculators had a more harmonious take on the situation, and conceived of a new town on the Deschutes called Hillman, a combination of the two railroad owners' names.

But after a wealthy Seattle businessman named Hillman was found guilty of real estate fraud, land sales dropped, and the town's name was changed to Terrebonne.

The constant news coverage made James J. Hill as well known in every household as any name in the country.

His image was seen on magazines and ads, to sell everything from pencils and hats to real estate and fruit.

The Deschutes Railroad War was a costly battle for Hill who personally paid for two thirds of the railroad's cost.

For Edward Harriman, it was literally a fight to the end.

In September of 1909, he was struck with an undetermined illness and died.

Hill said that "Harriman had tried carrying a load that was bigger than he could bear," but then added "that there were few in this country who could fill his shoes."

The war had taken its toll on both sides and a compromise was finally reached in January of 1910.

In areas that would allow room for only one line of rails, the two sides agreed to allow the other to ride on their tracks.

The compromise was actually a fait accompli.

Both railroads were approaching the Crooked River and its immense chasm.

There was only one feasible location where a bridge could be built and Hill owned the property.

The bridge was built simultaneously from both sides, but there was no means of transportation to reach the south side.

- They had to go to work on the south side, and to do so, they had to go down a rope ladder all the way down and it's not tethered to anything but the bottom and the top.

It moves around, and whatever tools or anything else you had on you, you were gonna have to bring with you all the way down, cross the river, climb the rope ladder up to the top and go to work 10 to 16 hour day and then repeat that at the end of the work day, every day.

- [Narrator] As construction on both sides neared the center, workers were able to lay a board across the girders and "walk the plank" to the other side.

Remarkably, the second highest bridge in the nation was built in just three months.

Following the Oregon Trunk's completion, Hill headed south aboard his special train arriving in Bend to join the Big Railroad Day Celebration that attracted crowds from across the county.

- "Cheers and tears from 3,000 greeted James J. Hill, 'The Empire Builder,' today when he drove the golden spike, marking the completion of the Oregon Trunk and inauguration of development of central Oregon's millions of idle acres."

La Grande Evening Observer, October 5th, 1911.

- [Narrator] The small town of Bend was soon home to the two largest pine mills in the world.

And within decades, Oregon surpassed Washington as the largest lumber producing state in the nation.

(soft music) [Narrator] Throughout his career in railroading, Hill had cultivated industries that tapped into the nation's natural resources, but he began to grow increasingly concerned about sustaining its finite supply.

He studied reports on diminishing soil production, salmon depletion, dwindling mineral deposits, and assessed the remaining stands of the nation's timber.

- Maybe it wasn't the John Muir in him that he was worried about.

It was, where am I gonna get my next car shipment if these guys cut so fast, but he saw that first hand.

There was boom followed by bust because nobody knew how to do a sustained anything.

- Hill was a man of the hour of the day, the balance sheet for the coming month, but he also had an extraordinary ability to extrapolate into the future.

- [Narrator] Hill then presented his findings at the Minnesota State Fair.

- "The sum of resources is simple and fixed, from the sea, the mine, the forest and the soil, must be gathered everything that can sustain the life of man.

We have come to the point where we must regard the natural resources of this planet as a common asset and study their judicious use."

James J. Hill, September 3rd, 1906.

- Hill's interest in conservation comes to a fore around the same time that Roosevelt is launching his conservation push.

- [Narrator] Despite their strained relationship, President Roosevelt invited Hill to be a guest speaker at a conference of governors to discuss conservation.

- "When will we take up, in a practical and intelligent way, the restoration of our forests?

When iron and coal are taken from the earth, they can be used only once, yet we still think nothing of consuming this priceless resource with the greatest possible speed.

It is time to set our house in order, to make men realize their duty toward coming generations."

James J. Hill, May 14th, 1908.

- "My dear Mr. Hill.

I wonder if you yourself realize how great an impression your speech at the Conservation Congress made?

I heard of it everywhere in Europe.

Sincerely yours, Theodore Roosevelt."

(soft music) - [Narrator] In 1907, Hill had decided to step down as president of the Great Northern.

He handed the reins to his son, Louis, but continued to play a controlling role as chairman of the board.

He was outwardly proud of his son, remarking to an old friend.

"If I had Lou to make over, I wouldn't change a thing."

- Without being critical, but I'm sure it will sound critical, Louis Hill simply wasn't James J. Hill.

And I think anybody who tried to follow James J. Hill was going to walk in a long shadow.

- He was quite a different person from his father.

- Louis had a much better talent for marketing.

When he looked at the west, he saw beauty.

- [Narrator] Louis was captivated by the grandeur of western Montana and began a working relationship with naturalist, George Bird Grinnell.

Grinnell had a storied career.

He was a member of Custer's Black Hills Expedition in 1874, founded the Audubon Society and was the longtime editor of "Forest and Stream."

He made his first trip to northwestern Montana in 1885 and returned there often, living with the Blackfeet for months at a time.

In the early 1890s, news of gold and copper on the western edge of the Blackfeet reservation attracted a rush of prospectors.

- This was outside people, once again, wanting a resource.

- And where the resources were was on Indian lands.

- [Narrator] The U.S. was required by treaty to keep miners off the Blackfeet reservation, but made no effort to stop them.

Instead, the federal government sent delegates to the reservation to buy the western edge of Blackfeet land.

The 20-mile wide strip included sacred territory that was part of what the Blackfeet called "the backbone of the world."

- Nanastikoi means the chief mountain.

Nanastikoi is very spiritual.

It is where the thunder comes from, and being Thunder people of this nation, that has great significance for us.

- Chief White Calf was reluctant to sell the land, but the tribe was still in dire need and accepted the offer.

- "Chief mountain is my head.

Now my head is cut off."

Chief White Calf, 1895.

- [Narrator] Over the next several years, however, the purchased territory did not produce the anticipated riches of gold and copper.

As miners abandoned their claims, George Grinnell saw an opportunity.

He began promoting the idea of turning the region into a national park and enlisted the help of Louis Hill to lobby Congress.

After nine years and numerous attempts, President Taft signed the legislation in 1910.

The 1,600 square miles would be called Glacier National Park and included the Blackfeet's 20-mile wide ceded strip.

The Blackfeet were now denied access to their sacred grounds an issue that would be disputed for decades.

- There was a lot of remorse about taking our land and making a park out of it.

- Glacier is more than just a park, this is my sanctuary, this is my church, and this will always be home to us.

- [Narrator] Louis Hill was wholly devoted to creating a tourist destination at Glacier National Park, commenting, "I loathe to entrust the development to anybody but myself."

Like his micromanaging father, he was involved in every aspect of the development and personally selected the most scenic locations to construct the two Swiss-themed luxury hotels, the 8 chalets and all the interior roads.

In the first five years, the Great Northern spent 10 times that of the federal government on its development.

Louis kicked off a promotional campaign with three words, "See America First."

The logo included a mountain goat, which would become the iconic symbol of the Great Northern Railway.

The goal of the campaign was to convince East Coast travelers to forego the now popular European vacation and visit what Louis liked to call America's Switzerland.

He then launched the luxurious Oriental Limited, allowing affluent passengers to travel in style, experiencing all of the railway's finest amenities.

- Now, here comes Louis Hill.

He needs to make a name for himself, and he's going to try and get people to ride the train.

- [Narrator] To promote the romance of the American West, Louis toured with a delegation of tribal members, introducing crowds to their ceremonial singing and dancing in cities across the country.

In Washington, DC, they met with the president, and in New York, they chose to sleep in teepees on the rooftop of their hotel.

- James Hill was a real big element of trying to get rid of the Indian and Louis W. Hill stepped in and he told his father, he said, "No, you've gotta have them involved in it."

- [Narrator] Glacier National Park provided seasonal employment for Blackfeet tribal members; greeting and interacting with visitors, serving as horseback guides and working a multitude of jobs at the hotels and chalets.

- I think he'd seen the advantage of creating that excitement of coming to Glacier to see the Blackfeet.

- My grandmother talked about how their reactions were, that of awe and disbelief "this is a real Indian?"

- There was attitudes that Indians are savages and rather than people.

- [Narrator] Over the next decade, Louis hired a number of artists to capture the tribal spirit he felt resonated throughout the park.

- They posed for pictures and things like that.

The exploitation of a culture and a people.

- My grandfather, John Eagle Calf Ground, was painted by Winold Reiss, along with many of the other Blackfeet, not only artist, but photographers that wanted to document our way of life.

- There's mixed feelings there, I guess, because some people felt like they were exploited.

But for me, being able to look at the pictures, it preserved the beauty of our people.

- For that time, I'm not sure we could have had a better friend in Louis Hill.

We were facing pressure to suppress American Indian identity, Blackfoot Indian religion, trying to Christianize and civilize our Blackfeet Indian people.

Louis Hill was a game changer.

He used his enormous financial power to set the stage for the reconsideration of the American Indian.

(soft music) - [Narrator] In the 16 years, since the Great Northern reached Seattle, Washington's population had tripled to over a million residents.

The state's timber industry became the nation's leading producer and the largest employer and the amount of state land devoted to farms and orchards had increased by 80%.

To celebrate its emergence as a major U.S. city, in June of 1909, Seattle hosted the world's fair, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition.

- The AYPE is an extraordinary expression of confidence and pride and aspiration.

- Was a high watermark for the old Seattle as it morphed into the new metropolitan Seattle.

- [Narrator] The city welcomed guests from around the world and chose James J. Hill as the keynote speaker for the opening day ceremonies.

- Perhaps nothing more clearly shows the place that he had in Seattle's narrative, that he was perhaps the primary player as a maker of 20th century Seattle.

- [Narrator] The crowd of 20,000 enthusiastically greeted Hill in the amphitheater, as the band struck up a rousing rendition of, "We won't go home until morning."

- He presented his vision in words that haunt us still.

- "Your great forests are falling.

Will you realize what this country will become when stripped of its forests?

The washing away of the soil, the inevitable changes in climate when the forests have gone.

Take care of your soil and it will take care of you and sustain and increase your prosperity forever.

What are you doing to keep the salmon and other fish of this coast not merely from extinction, but as a permanent source of wealth?

These questions are especially proper for you, who are guardians of the last remnant of our continental wealth.

From this memorable work of men you have but to raise your eyes and be in the presence of some of the grandest works of God, soil, climate, resources, all favor you.

You will never again know isolation.

The spaces once separating you from the rest of the country have been conquered.

Remain, as you have been, the architects of your own fortunes."

(audience cheering) - [Narrator] Two months later, the exposition featured Minnesota Day and a crowd numbering in the thousands watched as a bust of the Empire Builder was unveiled.

(soft music) The academic world had also begun to recognize the scope and impact of Hill's lifetime of work, bestowing him with honorary degrees, from Yale, Dartmouth and Macalester.

At Harvard, a permanent professorship was created in his honor, to which he would make a matching contribution.

- "Every item of his colossal success rests upon a series of facts, ascertained by him before they had been noted by others and upon the future relations, which he saw in those facts, to human need and national growth."

Professor Perrin, Yale University.

- [Narrator] Through his philanthropic gifts, Hill made clear the value he placed on education, donating the equivalent of 54 million dollars to more than 50 universities along the Great Northern line.

In St. Paul, he would make his single largest donation, the equivalent of 20 million dollars, to fund the James J. Hill Reference Library.

For Hill, the library was a means to give those who could not afford higher education free access to materials that could be used to better their lives.

The halo of Goodwill that surrounded Hill through the summer of 1909 was dimmed by tragic news several months later.

- In late February of 1910, a large storm formed across the entire Pacific Northwest and snow at Stevens Pass started to come down in quantities that they had not seen before.

You might call it a-hundred-year storm.

- [Narrator] A Great Northern passenger train and a mail train were trapped side by side in the snow, just outside the western portal of the Cascade Tunnel.

Above the train cars was the steep face of a mountain side, cleared by loggers and forest fires caused by engine sparks.

Below was a steep ravine that dropped 150 feet to the iced over Tye River.

More than a hundred passengers and crew members had already endured seven days in the train cars waiting for the rotary snow plows to clear the tracks.

- But the train was full of all kinds of people.

There were young people, old people, children.

Well, after a while, they began to run out food and people became angry, just like you would if you were cooped up.

- [Narrator] A group of restless passengers trudged their way 400 yards east to the town of Wellington, which lay buried under 11 feet of snow.

- Some of them actually inquired at the hotel at Wellington, if they could have a room and there were only a couple rooms left and the innkeeper, Mr. Bailet, said, you can have the room if you sweep the snow out of the room.

- The remaining passengers urged the superintendent to back the train into the tunnel but the conductor refused, knowing that they would freeze because he wouldn't be able to run the coal burning engines once inside.

- The passengers were sleeping on the train and there was a huge thunder and lightning storm.

And somewhere in the middle of the night, there was a trigger and a large avalanche came down from over 500 feet and pushed into the trains and moved them into the valley.

- [Narrator] Wellington residents and railroad workers rushed to the site to untangle the wreckage from the trees and snow.

Muffled voices could be heard, and in rare instances, survivors were pulled free.

Rescue workers grew more disheartened as they uncovered more and more bodies.

It was only after several days had passed that it was learned that 96 passengers and railroad employees had perished in what remains the deadliest avalanche in U.S. history.

Stunned by the loss of life, Hill spent millions constructing more than eight miles of snow sheds throughout the cascades.

- Nobody wanted to travel through Wellington.

So the railroad change the name to Tye so that no one would see the name Wellington on a schedule.

- [Narrator] The forces of nature also wreaked havoc in the plains of Montana and North Dakota.

While dryland farming had steadily increased wheat production over the past decade, the region was soon engulfed in the worst succession of droughts in both states' history.

Swarms of grasshoppers followed, then wire worm, cut worm and dust storms that blanketed the land.

Year after year, entire crops were lost.

More than 75,000 people fled the region.

20,000 mortgages were foreclosed and half of Montana's farmers lost their land during the next decade.

Mattie Cramer was deeply in debt and moved to Washington State, while Adelia Glover and her family held out for as long as they could.

- "The drought had killed our last chance of surviving.

When we left, we just pulled out, notified the bank and gave up all we had worked nine years for.

Those were tough turbulent times, but I feel we were part of settling the West and I do not regret a minute of it."

Adelia Glover.

- [Narrator] Others who lost their farms were less forgiving and made Hill the singular target of their resentment.

- Those people were very bitter.

They felt like the railroad had lured them into a situation that the railroad knew was untenable.

And oftentimes they personalized it by saying James J. Hill had done this.

And there were certain weeds they referred to as Jim Hill weeds and so forth, to show their contempt.

- [Narrator] Newspapers added to the bitterness, "Twixt Hill and hell there's but a letter; were Hill in hell we'd all feel better."

For the tens of thousands of people who were left destitute, and for the generations that followed, James J. Hill, more than any other, was blamed for their misfortune.

- It wasn't Hill's fault that it failed, and there were lots of other people who promoted it, but for the thousands and thousands and thousands of settlers in Montana who had to leave because their farms failed probably didn't matter.

- There was one lady who came up to me whose father worked for the railroads in North Dakota around this time.

And she still retained a bitterness towards James J. Hill.

- [Narrator] For someone who believed so strongly in the value of the American farmer, and who had dedicated so much of his time and personal resources to improve their lives, it was cruel irony.

While Hill's vision of family farms across these arid lands did not materialize as he hoped, the introduction of large scale bonanza farms and new farming equipment would transform Montana and North Dakota into two of the top four wheat producing states in the nation.

(soft music) On a warm sunny evening in June of 1912, James J. Hill sat in the quiet of his den, writing his retirement speech.

He reminisced about his years with the Great Northern and was confident that its operation no longer depended upon the life or labor of any single individual.

A year later, the Great Northern's most devoted and longtime employees organized a Veteran's Association under the leadership of William McMillan, who began his career with the Manitoba in 1879.

The Veteran's Association brought together more than 350 employees and included a number of immigrants who had helped build the railroad.

And over the years, had advanced their careers working all along the Great Northern line.

- The section foreman in Whitefish was a Greek, and the next foreman beyond that was an Armenian, beyond that was an Italian and the next foreman was a Norwegian, and the next man to the west was a Japanese.

And they were all good Americans and they were some of the best men I've ever worked with.

- [Narrator] To celebrate Hill's 75th birthday, 380 Great Northern employees, all of whom had 25 or more years of service, were treated with a trip to Glacier National Park to attend the organization's first meeting.

- "The company is a piece of paper.

It has no life.

It has no action except such as the men behind it give it.

We have men in prominent positions today who were born in section houses on the Great Northern and have grown up with the company.

That is one of my greatest satisfactions.

I will feel a great deal of pride to know that it will be run by the hands of the children of those who are currently on the payroll."

James J. Hill.

- The Great Northern really had an esprit de corps that the old timers who actually knew Mr. Hill, they were proud that they worked for the Great Northern.

- [Narrator] Retired and in the winter of his life, Hill devoted his time to follow his interests.

In his travels across the country, he had talked with dozens of farmers who told him about the difficulty of getting critical short term loans to pay for additional labor at harvest time.

To find a solution, Hill took on banking as his new hobby.

In the spring of 1912, Hill rode his carriage downtown to the First National Bank of St. Paul with an offer to purchase the bank.

The president politely declined.

Hill walked down the street to the Second National Bank of St. Paul and tried again.

This time his offer was accepted.

He returned to First National and told the president he would now need to transfer all of his personal and railroad business to Second National.

The bank president reconsidered, an accepted Hill's previous offer.

After spending the equivalent of more than $100 million, Hill merged the two banks together a year later.

He added an agricultural department to his bank and staged regional farming contests with the slogan, "Corn and Cattle Contribute Capital for Bigger Bank Balances."

In three short years, farmers received 10 times the number of loans from Hill's First National Bank.

Deposits tripled, making it the second largest bank west of the Mississippi River.

Hill's retirement hobby would ultimately become the foundation of US Bank, one of the largest financial institutions in the United States (soft music) In the fall of 1915, Hill's final act would be played on the world's stage.

The European continent had been engulfed in The Great War for more than a year.

Britain and France were growing more and more financially unstable and sent a delegation to the United States with the hope of securing a billion dollar loan.

The delegates met in New York with several prominent American bankers who invited Hill to attend.

Together, they crafted a plan in which private banks would cover the loan and be repaid with bonds sold to the public.

Hill knew that the banks of the West would not support loans for weapons or ammunition and insisted that the funds could only be used to purchase U.S. grain, cotton and wool.

German-American interests were adamantly against the loan, warning Hill of the possibility that Britain and France might default.

- "Suppose they are losers in the war, which, to say the least, is not impossible.

Why should you risk your reputation in a lost cause?"

The Chamber of German-American Commerce.

- [Narrator] Many American bankers worried that it would draw the country into the war and drain capital from the economy.

Hill shouldered the brunt of the criticism and fired back in editorials and speaking engagements, turning the argument around.

- "If we don't sell our wheat, what are we going to do with it, feed it to the hogs?

This will support our own industries, prevent disaster to our agriculture and assure the prosperity of the United States.

This loan is far less of favor to others than the necessity for ourselves."

- [Narrator] Hill's reframing of the argument galvanized public sentiment.

Banking leaders soon followed, and the plan was approved.

The Anglo-French Delegation offered their country's gratitude to Hill.

- "My dear Mr. Hill, I have felt very keenly how large a share of the credit for the success of our mission here is owing from my colleagues and myself to you.

Your powerful aid has been of the greatest assistance to the British and French governments."

Lord Reading, October 15th, 1915.

- [Narrator] The one billion dollar loan was by far the largest financial transaction in history and would mark America's coming of age in the world's economy.

The U.S. transitioned from a debtor nation to a creditor nation for the first time since it's independence.

New York would replace London as the financial capital of the world.

And the United States would firmly establish itself as the leading force in the global economy.

Over the course of five decades, Hill's rise to power paralleled that of his adopted nation.

From a modest agrarian upbringing to an industrial Titan.

The young man who started as a mud clerk on the banks of the Mississippi had become one of the most influential players on the world's stage.

(bells dinging) In May of 1914, James J. Hill boarded the Great Northern in Seattle on what would be his last trip across the country.

(soft music) Over the 1,700 mile journey, he must have felt a sense of pride, as he passed the dozens of towns, cities, farms and ranches he helped bring into existence and the countless people who called it their home.

- "I feel that a labor and service so called into being, touching at so many points, the lives of so many millions, has been the best evidence of its value.

Most men who have really lived, have had, in some shape, their great adventure.

This railway is mine."

James J. Hill.

- [Narrator] In mid May of 1916, Hill was struck with a fever from a severe infection caused by an abscess on the back of his leg.

While bedridden for the next 10 days, he continued to work, but the fever and the pain worsened.

Doctors, William and Charles Mayo, traveled from their clinic in Rochester to perform surgery at his Summit Avenue home, but it was too much for his 77 year-old body.

Hill fell into a coma on Monday, May 29th.

- "At 9:50 AM today, Papa very peacefully breathed his last."

Mary Hill.

- [Narrator] At his bedside that evening, he was surrounded by his loving wife, Mary, and all nine of his children.

Minnesota's governor stated, "The greatest constructive genius of the Northwest is gone," and ordered flags at half staff.

It was the first time the state's flags were lowered to honor a private citizen.

On the day of the funeral, throughout Minnesota, public schools, banks and theaters were closed.

A procession of more than 100 automobiles passed thousands of mourners, lining the road to Hill's beloved North Oaks farm.

A light rain began to fall as the casket was lowered into the ground.

- "A great man has gone from earthly life.

Not only a man of rarest talent of mind, a genius seldom seen, but one who has put his wondrous talent to the service of fellow men, whose whole career was marked with strict integrity and highest sense of honor."

John Ireland, Archbishop of St. Paul.

- [Narrator] At 2:00 PM, the scheduled time of the funeral, bells and steam whistles could be heard across James J. Hill's empire, from every corner of the country and all parts in between.

Every passenger and freight train and every steamship at sea and on the Great Lakes cut their engines and came to a standstill in a moment of silence lasting five minutes.

News of Hill's passing was carried on front pages throughout the country and across the Atlantic.

- [Reporter] "Through the farsightedness of Mr. Hill, the wonderful development of the Northwest has been made possible.

Coming generations will write as the epitaph of James J. Hill, that he was not only the shrewdest businessman of his day, but that he was the greatest empire builder that the United States has ever known."

The Seattle Times.

- [Narrator] Almost as a fitting tribute to Hill, in 1916, the year of his passing, total U.S. railroad mileage reached its apex.

In 1970, nearly seven decades after the Supreme Court broke apart Northern Securities, a merger brought all of the Hill lines together again as the Burlington Northern Railroad.

Twenty-five years later, a merger of the Burlington and the Santa Fe Railway would create today's BNSF.

From "two streaks of rust" to a vast network of rails, James J. Hill's empire lives on.

- James J. Hill was one of the great entrepreneurs in American history.

- It's not just what he did, but how he did it.

- His vision, his foresight, went far beyond the building of a rail line.

- He wasn't about building a railroad just to make money.

- Sure, he got wealthy, but I think he derived a personal sense of satisfaction from the idea of developing the land.

- Creating an empire that would be something for millions of people.

- James J. Hill was part of the rise of America to being a world class economic power.

- Audacious in boldness and visionary thinking, there absolutely was no equal.

(soft music)