Abaigh's+Speech


 * Woodmen Speech General Grenville Mellen Dodge**

When you hear trains go by on their tracks, what do you think about? Do you ever wonder who helped build many of the railroads in the United States? General Grenville M. Dodge was that man, and his dream was to help people and goods get from place to place. What did he do with that dream? Grenville pursued railroad building with the best effort that he could offer, and everyone is happy that he did.

Dodge was born in Danvers, Massachusetts on April 12, 1831. His childhood consisted of working for his neighbors (selling fruits, shoveling snow, sweeping walkways, and many other odd jobs.) When he was about 14, he started laying his first railroad tracks. When he was old enough to leave home, he decided to go to college. He went to the University of Massachusetts, and graduated with a degree in civil and military engineering from the scientific department. After he graduated in 1851, he right away made the decision to go into building railroads, which was the work that took up a big chunk of his life. His other interests were in the fields of banking and real estate.

When he was working on the expansion of a railroad system, for the Illinois Central Railroad, he was in Peru, Illinois. While he was in Peru, Illinois, he met his future wife. That woman was Ruth Anne. After Grenville and Ruth got married, they moved to Iowa City. Then, a couple of years later, they moved farther west to Council Bluffs, Iowa. In 1861, when the Civil War began, he became involved in the war and left behind railroad work for awhile. During the war, he had heard about the new Transcontinental Railroad that was going to be built **after** the war. When he heard that, he was happy, but he had to finish his duties in the war first. He stopped fighting the war, because Union Pacific had offered him a job as their president. He was honored, so he took the job. You know that Transcontinental Railroad I talked about earlier? That was being built **before** the war ended. The rumor about the railroad being built **after** the war wasn't true. They were way ahead of schedule! The railroads were crawling together to become one. The Central Pacific alerted the Union Pacific that they had started laying down their tracks. After that, the Union Pacific got to work. Finally on the day of May 8, 1869, the railroad was completed, but they had to postpone the ceremony because rain was pouring down hard. On May 10, 1869, it was a nice enough day to have the ceremony. Since Dodge was the President of the Union Pacific Railroad, he shook the hand of the President of the Central Pacific Railroad when the spike was put in the ground. They worked so hard to get it there.

A year after the Transcontinental Railroad was built, Dodge was offered many high ranking jobs in railroad companies across the U.S., but of course, he always stayed true to The Union Pacific. Dodge had decided one day that he would try to get a railroad job near Washington D.C. because he was such good friends with Abraham Lincoln. After all, one of his major milestones was being interviewed by Lincoln before and after the Transcontinental Railroad was built. Then a day after Lincoln was killed he received a dispatch from the military saying that Lincoln was shot. Dodge was crushed, and he would never forget that message at that moment in time. Grenville M. Dodge was a heroic Civil War General, a successful banker, and was also greatly involved in real estate. However, Dodge was also a railroad builder who helped build railroads across the country, and it was this part of his life that I feel affected people the most. Dodge’s dream was to help people and goods get transported from place to place and unite the nation. In the end, he achieved that goal. That is why I think he was a person who has touched many lives.