This was the pioneer railroad constructed into or from Cincinnati. It received its charter from the State March 11, 1836. The agitation in behalf of it took its rise in Cincinnati from a pressing sense of the need of a railway connection with the north and east through a route to Sandusky, connecting with the lake navigation, and thus affording a more ready and convenient outlet for the yearly increasing product of the Miami valley than the river supplied. The route proposed lay altogether in the valley of the Little Miami to Xenia, sixty-six miles from the city, and thence to Springfield, eighty-four miles in all. This was the whole length of the road, as originally surveyed and chartered. At Springfield it was to meet the Lake Erie and Mad River railroad, forming with it a continuous line to Sandusky. Here also it intersected the National road, upon or near which a railway was sure to be built soon to Columbus and thence eastward.
For the work of survey the services of a young scientist, then of but twenty-six years, struggling with pecuniary difficulties in the maintenance of his family and the establishment of the Cincinnati observatory, were secured as engineer. He afterwards became renowned as the astronomer, popular lecturer, author, and army commander, professor, and general, Ormsby M. MITCHEL. Young MITCHEL threw himself into the enterprise with all the energy which secured to the city of his adoption the observatory and its great telescope, in the face of tremendous difficulties. He became not merely a hired servant, but an active promoter, of the enterprise. He surveyed the route, made his estimates, and then aided in the push for pecuniary aid. In conjunction with Mr. George W. NEFF, a prominent and influential citizen of Cincinnati, he pressed the merits of the project upon the attention of the city council, and finally secured a loan of the public credit of the city to the amount of two hundred thousand dollars. He then went to eastern cities, and did what he could, under the depressing circumstances of the financial panic of those years, to secures further pecuniary aid for the company. Under the legislative act of March 24, 1837, the road secured a loan of State credit amounting to one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. Gradually but surely, as means became available in those " times," the construction of the road was pushed, and finally, in August, 1846, more than a decade after the obtainment of its charter, the promoters of the project had the satisfaction of witnessing its completion to Springfield. It was a gala time for Cincinnati�the consummation of the first of its since numerous railway enterprises. The difficulties with which this pioneer railroad battled in its earlier years were at times almost insurmountable. They were admirably depicted, from personal recollections, in the address of Hon. S. S. L' delivered at a celebration by the Cincinnati Pioneer association, April 7, 1874:
The struggle of the officers of the Little Miami company to carry on their work, the then young civil engineers can best record. They could tell how often, when pay-day came, how many cattle were butchered and distributed to the laborers�cattle which had been received in payment of the farmers' subscriptions to capital stock. They could also tell how the men of the " and the pick" surround the house of hones William LEWIS, the treasurer, demanding money from an empty treasury, calling him every kind of hard name, until he was forced in search of his president, in order to resign, saying, " men, when I tell them I have no money, call me a liar and scoundrel so often and so earnestly that I begin to think that I am and what they call me, and I must resign."
Thirty miles of the road were nevertheless opened to public traffic in 1843. The total rolling stock of the company was then one eight-wheeled locomotive, two passenger coaches and eight freight cars�all, even the locomotive, made in Cincinnati. On the seventeenth of July, 1845, it was opened to Xenia, sixty-eight miles distant, and the first train over the completed track to Springfield was run August 10, 1846. The cost of the road to his time had been one million two hundred and twenty-two thousand dollars; when afterwards leased to the Pennsylvania company it represented a value of about five millions. The property of the road had to be assigned to trustees before reaching Springfield; yet a dividend upon the capita stock was already cleared by it in 1845, and thereafter, to the time of its lease, dividends were quite regularly declared to an average amount of ten per cent per annum; and it still, under the lease, pays a very handsome revenue to its owners. It has been financially, one of the most successful railways in the world. Its early dividends, however, were smaller, and the stock of the road first came to par in 1852, after that of the Cleveland & Columbus, then reaching one hundred and twenty-five before experiencing a fall. Its convertible bonds were rapidly turned into stock, which is still largely held by the original parties or their heirs. The only bonded indebtedness of the road was created, to the amount of one and a half millions, to meet the expense of rebuilding and other improvements. The original strap rail used on the road was displaced by T rail, curves were straightened, grades reduced, and other useful changes made. It now, for twenty-eight miles out of Cincinnati, has a double-track. The connection for Sandusky was not completed till the latter part of 1848, when the Little Miami and the Mad River railroads gave Cincinnati her first rail and water communication with the Atlantic coast. A large passenger and freight business was at once commanded; the leading stage lines upon or near the route soon were disused, and a great impetus was given to railway construction.
The connection for Columbus was made at Xenia by the Columbus & Xenia railroad, which was, however, not constructed until 1849-9, the first passenger train traversing it February 20, 1850. Soon afterwards the members of the general assembly made an excursion over this and the Little Miami roads to Cincinnati. November 30, 1853, the two companies operating each its own road entered into an arrangement by which both were operated as a single line. January 1, 1865, they came into possession, by lease, of the Dayton & Western and the Richmond & Miami railways, and later in the same year, by purchase, of the division of the Dayton, Xenia & Belpre road between the two places first named. The partnership arrangement of 1853 was dissolved November 30, 1868, when the Little Miami company took a lease for ninety-nine years of the Columbus & Xenia road, and all the rights and interests of that corporation in the Dayton and Western, Xenia & Belpre, and Richmond & Miami roads. Just one year and one day thereafter the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati & St. Louis (Pan-Handle) railroad company leased of the Little Miami company its own road, the branch owned by it from Xenia to Dayton, and all its rights in the Columbus & Xenia and other roads. The lease is for ninety years, renewable forever, and brings an annual rental of eight per cent, to the Little Miami company on its capital stock, besides interest on the funded debt, five thousand dollars yearly for expenses of organization, and the fulfillment of lease obligations to its own leased lines. The road is operated by the Pennsylvania company, which was a party to the contract, and by whom its faithful performance was guaranteed. The total length of its lines is one hundred and nine-five and nine-tenths miles�eighty-four on the main line, Cincinnati to Springfield; sixteen on its branch, Xenia to Dayton; fifty-four and seventy-four hundredths on its leased line from Xenia to Columbus; thirty-seven on that from Dayton to the Indiana State line (Dayton & Western), and four and sixteen-hundredths thence to Richmond, Indiana (Richmond & Miami). It is one of the most profitable roads in the United States, its earnings per mile in 1879 being six thousand eight hundred and one dollars and ninety-two cents, and its expenses but four thousand four hundred and fifty-eight dollars and fifty-three cents per mile. A spacious and costly new depot is building for it on the southeast corner of Pearl and Butler streets, Cincinnati, erected, of course, by the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati & St. Louis railroad company.