SG Durant and his so-called railroads

As the American railroads were built westward after the Civil War, it quickly became apparent to every town and county that their success and even their very existence depended on the railroad; with it they would flourish and grow, without it they would wither and die. This left communities ignored by transcontinental construction, fanatical in their quest for north/south or at least shorter branch lines. This opened the door for promoters, often completely unscrupulous, to step in and offer a bill of goods worth little or nothing.

In the late 1880s, Arnold, near the western edge of Custer County, lost its chance at three railroads as the Union Pacific missed it far to the south, the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad passed through Broken Bow to the east, and the Kearney & Black Hills Railroad was not developed. Arnold was ripe for being ripped off.

SG Durant was one such promoter. Even his name may well have been made up to be confused with Thomas C. Durant, head of the Union Pacific, and there is no information as to what the initials referred to. It is also difficult to determine specifically where he came from. Some sources say Illinois or Ohio, but most agree he came to Nebraska from Dubuque or possibly Dyersville, Iowa. Durant appears to be a fully grown man, smoking long black cigars, dressed to the nines and driving the latest car, sometimes a Franklin, sometimes a Stanley Steamer. Arnold was perhaps one of his first targets, although at some unspecified time he promoted an electric interurban railroad to connect with Dallas “if $15,000 (was) subscribed by the citizens of Knoxville, Iowa.” He was also listed as president of the Iowa Northern Railway, which would operate an interurban railroad in Clayton County, Iowa.

We do know that SG Durant arrived in Arnold, Nebraska, on February 7, 1911, with the also untraceable Eli Smith, who was identified as a banker from Gandy, a town about 11 miles to the west in Logan County. Arnold immediately got into an uproar over a meeting Durant had called later that day. Durant asked citizens to subscribe for $100,000 worth of shares and deeds for all necessary properties on a straight line from Broken Bow to North Platte in an arc, with Arnold at the center. The line would connect the Union Pacific to the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad. Arnold, whose population at the time was only 231, still managed to promise $50,000 in shares. After discussion, Durant agreed to accept $75,000.

Probably just to provoke action, Durant let slip that if he couldn’t raise the $75,000, he might bypass Arnold altogether and just build the railroad in a straight line from Broken Bow to North Platte. He then reinforced his sotto voce threat by hiring a survey team to very visibly stake out a line south of Arnold. Meanwhile, the Union Pacific announced that they might build a line from Broken Bow to Arnold, which would then head directly northwest, missing Gandy entirely.

One account, which may seem apocryphal, has it that Arnold and Gandy contacted Durant, who reportedly agreed to contact Union Pacific on their behalf to secure the Arnold-Gandy connections, a scheme that would have yielded no benefit to Durant. It is a matter of record that Union Pacific did in fact acquire the Kearney & Black Hills Railroad and somehow obtained Durant’s right-of-way vouchers and proceeds from stock sales, although how and why remains a mystery. The result was a Union Pacific line to Arnold that opened in March 1912, and a branch line that still missed Gandy by three miles but did provide Stapleton.

Durant was also at work in Iowa in September and October 1911, promoting an interurban line from Luxembourg, which would raise $35,000, to Colesburg, which would raise $40,000. This, Durant promised, was “not a promotional stock, not a scheme to drain the money through exploitation on Wall Street.” In early 1912, Durant announced that he would build his Midland Railroad between Rockford and Kankakee. A few miles of track were actually laid and a rented locomotive ran for a very short time before Durant simply disappeared.

On November 18, 1912, SG Durant was jailed on “heavy bail (for) approving supposedly worthless stock (through his) American Redemption Company,” while federal authorities accused him of using the mails for fraud.

During his trials, it became difficult to determine whether SG Durant was his real name, since so many aliases were used. Amazingly, Arnold’s people still had faith in Durant and credited him with being at least partly responsible for the eventual building of the Union Pacific.