The Duluth and Iron Range Railroad was struggling mightily during the winter of 1883-84.

When Sam Ely, a friend of Tower’s, agreed to meet with John Wolfe, the line’s working boss, Ely could see by the obvious lack of satisfactory progress that things were not good on the line.

Tower’s spirits and confidence in the venture were at their lowest that winter, and Ely agreed to make the trip to look at the situation first hand as a favor to his friend.

When questioned about the reasons for the delay, Wolfe informed Ely that many workers had fallen sick from influenza. The weather was as cold as anyone could remember, and poor sanitary conditions in the camps only exacerbated conditions.

In addition, the line crossed many swamps and sink holes before it reached the Mesabi Hills which were a part of the ancient Laurentian Mountains.

The Ojibway called them the Big Man Hills. They may not have been much of a mountain range compared to either the Rockies or the Appalachians, but the old range seemed tall enough for the men who struggled to blast the line through them.

It was clear to Ely when he made a tour of the half-completed line that if things continued as they were, John Wolfe didn’t have a chance of completing the work by the deadline set by the Minnesota Legislature of July 31, 1884.

If the line wasn’t completed by that date, Tower and Breitung stood to lose their entire investment. Ely saw that unless something were done to help John Wolfe step up the progress that was exactly what would happen.

When Wolfe and Ely met to discuss the reasons for the slow progress and higher than expected costs, Wolfe was able to document the progress of the line on an accurate mile-to-mile account of the progress to date.

Ely read the record of the large swamps and sink holes which swollowed up tons of fill, costing both time and money. And then there were the granite ridges of the Mesabi Hills that tested the strength of the drillers.

Things were either too hard or too soft. Poor weather and rampant illness only magnified the problems. After reading the reports, Ely asked Wolfe if it were still possible to complete the line by the end of July.

After thinking a moment, Wolfe nodded his head and answered in the affirmative. If Tower paid for additional help there was a good chance Wolfe and Company could complete the work on time.

It was all Ely needed to hear. He bid goodbye to John Wolfe and headed back east.

Ely met with Tower and Breitung in Tower’s Philadelphia office. Neither Tower or Breitung were particularly happy with Ely’s report.

Both Tower and Breitung initially balked at Wolfe’s request for additional help.

Tower had begun the venture looking to invest some of the profits he made in the Pennsylvania Oil Fields back in the 1870s. That seemed like a long time ago.

The Minnesota Mine and D&IRR had used up all of Tower’s initial investment and now threatened to bankrupt both he and Breitung if John Wolfe didn’t complete the line on time. In the end, it all came down to Wolfe finishing the Duluth and Iron Range Railroad by the last day of July or all was lost.

Ely allowed Breitung and Tower to vent their frustrations, and then he pointed out to them that the D&IRR could be completed on time if they doubled their efforts.

Ely allowed for the worry about the additional risk, but if they didn’t take a chance now, it was certain that all the money they had already spent would be forfeited.

Elisha Morcom’s reports from the Minnesota Mine were positive. Close to two hundred men were hard at work in a number of small open pits that had already produced enough iron to cover the additional costs incurred by the railroad.

Without a working line to ship the iron down to Lake Superior, the Minnesota Mine wasn’t worth anything. Morcom was in the process of sinking shafts close to the pits, and then putting out short tunnels to the bottom of the pits in order to help raise the iron to the surface in a process called Mill Mining.

Finishing the railroad would still be a close thing, but both Tower and Breitung decided that they had come too far to turn back now.

Somehow they would come up with the additonal cash to finish the line by the last day of July.

From the beginning, Tower liked being in charge. There was never any doubt who the senior partner was. The 1870s and 1880s were a time of staggering business growth in America.

Great financial changes started when the government issued paper money to help finance the cost of the Civil War. Up until then, the American Government relied on gold and silver to conduct its business. The Civil War changed that.

There wasn’t enough gold and silver in the U.S. Treasury to cover the huge costs incurred during the war. In order to conduct business, the government needed to rely on fiat money and the promise to back the paper dollars.

When wealthy investors started building railroads in the 1870s they used the same principle to issue stock certificates to stand for real wealth. It was the birth of corporations.

Corporations were bigger than any individual investor. Corporations were immortal, and some said they had no soul. People die, but corporations live forever, if run correctly, and like them or not they were a fact that small entrepreneurs like Tower and Breitung needed to be aware of, less they be gobbled up by greater wealth and power then they possessed.

Tower and Breitung didn’t want to sell public shares in their venture. They were afraid of losing control of the operation.

Rather than selling public shares to raise the additional money, the two men decided to borrow the money in order to come up with the needed additional capital.

Soon the work force on the D&IRR was doubled. A few weeks later John Wolfe was able to report that the line crossed over the Mesabi Hills. They were now on the far side of the Continential Divide. South of the Mesabi Hills the water flowed either east to Lake Superior or south to the Mississippi River.

Now small rivers like the Pike flowed north towards Hudson Bay. There would still be ridges that needed blasting, and swamps that needed filling, but with the additional work force, the line was now making real progress.

Ore docks were being readied on the shores of Lake Superior’s Agate Bay. The port city of Two Harbors was growing up around the large wooden docks which jutted out into the sheltered bay.

At the other end of the line, Elisha Morcom and over two hundred miners were working hard at the Minnesota Mine.

Stock piles of blue iron were growning larger everyday. Finishing the line by July 31, was going to be a close thing, but as a cold spring gave way to an unusually cool summer, Charlemagne Tower and Edward Breitung had given themselves a chance for success.

It was all in the hands of John Wolfe to finish the line on time, or all would be lost.