1886 ST LOUIS MISSOURI BILLHEAD & VOUCHER M M BUCK RAILROAD SUPPLIES UNION DEPO

Description

1886 ST LOUIS MISSOURI BILLHEAD & VOUCHER M M BUCK RAILROAD  SUPPLIES SOLD TO UNION DEPOT, KANSAS CITY. SIGNED BY KANSAS RAILROAD BARON GEORGE NETTLETON PRESIDENT OF THE UNION DEPOT. 2 PCS .GREAT VIGNETTE
"ARTICLES USED IN CONSTRUCTING AND OPERATING, RAILROADS"
STEAMBOAT, TELEGRAPH, MINERS, FOUNDRY
ADDRESS: 209, 211 NORTH 3RD ST.
SOLD TO UNION DEPOT KANSAS CITY
NETTLETON WAS THE PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER OF THE UNION DEPOT STATION IN KANSAS CITY AND LATER THE PRESIDENT OF THE FT. SCOTT & MEMPHIS RAILROAD.
NICE PIECE OF EARLY KANSAS RAILROAD HISTORY.
NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH THE CURRENT UNION STATION.
SEE MY STORE: VINTAGE HARDWARE STORE COLLECTIBLES
George H. Nettleton
Railroad Baron
1831-1896
by Daniel Coleman
At the peak of his career, George Nettleton lived in a West Bluffs mansion overlooking the Kansas City Stock Yards and Union Depot, both of which he managed in addition to the 800 miles of railroad track and 2,000 employees under his command. Nettleton was as close to a railroad baron as Kansas City could boast in the late 1800s, with the exception that he was not an owner of the various lines he controlled. Indeed, he had worked his way up in the railroad business from an entry-level, per day axe-man position from which a promotion, he was told when he started the job, depended solely upon one?s "ability to make yourself useful."
George H. Nettleton was born November 13, 1831, in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, located just northwest of Springfield.  George left Massachusetts to study civil engineering and mathematics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, but his family struggled to afford the school, and he returned after just one year.
Nettleton dreamed of joining in the important work of building a modern, transcontinental rail system, and to this end he took a position as a laborer with the New Haven & New London Railroad. From axe-man to rodman, draughtsman to leveler, Nettleton worked his way up, and caught the attention of the man who had hired him, Chief Engineer Josiah Hunt. Upon completion of the New Haven and New London line, Hunt headed west to work on the Terra Haute & Alton Railroad, with Nettleton as one of his hand-picked division.
The 1850s saw Nettleton's career as an engineer advancing steadily along with the miles of track laid by the various railroads for which he worked. After completing his section of the Terra Haute & Alton line, Nettleton was hired as a division engineer for the Great Western Railway of Illinois (later part of the Wabash Railroad). He served for a time as an assistant, then general superintendent of the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad. The Hannibal Bridge opened under Nettleton?s watch in 1869. Nettleton was also instrumental in the laying of one of the earliest rail lines in the Kansas City area when he oversaw completion of the Cameron to Kansas City road.
In 1872, Nettleton became the general superintendent of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, and from his headquarters in Topeka, Kansas, supervised the line's extension as far as the state's western border. He moved to Kansas City in 1874 and turned his attention toward developing the growing transportation center his railroad endeavors had helped to create. He organized and managed the Kansas City Stockyards, and, at the helm of the Union Depot Company, administered the city's first major railroad station and yards in the West Bottoms. Nettleton was an important link to eastern capitalists who backed Kansas City business ventures. He helped incorporate the First National Bank of Kansas City and served as president of the Fort Scott & Memphis Railway.
They built a 12-room, brick mansion on the West Bluffs at 7th Street overlooking Nettleton's industrial domain, but he died only a few years later at age 64, on March 26, 1896. In 1900, Julia Nettleton donated the structure to be used as a home for elderly women, and although these occupants moved to new quarters in 1917, the George H. Nettleton Home served as a living monument to its namesake throughout the twentieth century.
Union Depot
Union Avenue
completed 1878, demolished 1915
by Susan Jezak Ford
When Union Depot was built in Kansas City?s West Bottoms, it was frequently called the ?Jackson County Insane Asylum? by those who believed that the city would never have a need for such a large train station. It did not take long, however, for the city to outgrow the immense, new showplace.
Kansas City was home to 60,000 citizens when the depot was built in 1878. The fashionable, elegant building replaced a two-room structure designed by Octave Chanute. The site for Union Depot was acquired from early Kansas City leaders Kersey Coates and William H. Hopkins. In 1869 the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, the first railroad to reach Kansas City, purchased part of the site for railroad tracks from the two property owners. The Missouri River and Gulf Railroad bought more land from the men in 1870 for Kansas City?s first train station. The city condemned 6.5 additional acres for the new Union Depot in 1878. Altogether, the depot building?the second Union Depot in the country?and the adjoining land cost the city 0,000. (St. Louis was the first city where the various railroad companies decided to locate their terminal facilities in one location.)
The ornate Union Depot was built parallel to the bluffs of the West Bottoms and stood between the railroad tracks and Union Avenue. As one approached the station from the upper elevation of downtown Kansas City, the towers of the depot recalled the faraway skylines of Paris, Vienna, or Berlin. ?It is one of the most picturesque and attractive buildings in the United States,?
The Kansas City Star
reporter wrote. The writer went on to describe the building as designed in the Renaissance style and ?somewhat Frenchy? with its mansard roof and Parisian towers. ?The architect has given us the handsomest and most pleasing union of two of the most pleasing styles in modern architecture,? he concluded. The depot opened for business on April 8, 1878.
ORIGINAL, LETTERHEADS, BILLHEAD, BILLHEADS, HARDWARE.  NORMAL AGING FOR THIS PERIOD,
I AM PRICED MANY TIMES LOWER THAN MOST SELLERS ON EBAY.