Jay Cooke's Gamble; The Northern Pacific Railroad, the Sioux, and the Panic of 1873

Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good. xviii, 380, [2] pages. Frontis illustration. Maps, Illustrations. Tables. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Minor ding at bottom of front board. After 32 years as a cable television executive and successfully co-founding two communications companies and a cable network, John Lubetkin knows first-hand the pains and risks involved in forming new businesses in the face of determined competition. In retirement, John first channeled his creative interests into the little known story of Jay Cooke and the speculative, ethically-challenged creation of the Northern Pacific Railroad. The result was John's multiple award-winning, multi-disciplinary, Jay Cooke's Gamble: The Northern Pacific Railroad, The Sioux, and the Panic of 1873. In 1869, Jay Cooke, the brilliant American banker, decided to finance the Northern Pacific, a transcontinental railroad planned from Duluth to Seattle. Lubetkin tells how Cooke's gamble reignited war with the Sioux, rescued George Armstrong Custer from obscurity, created Yellowstone Park, pushed frontier settlement four hundred miles westward, and triggered the Panic of 1873. Staking his wealth on the Northern Pacific, Cooke was whipsawed by the railroad's mismanagement, questionable contracts, and construction problems. Financier J. P. Morgan undermined him, and the Credit Mobilier scandal ended congressional support. Indian attacks led to embarrassing setbacks on the field, in the nation's press, and among investors. Lubetkin's suspenseful narrative describes events played out from Wall Street to the Yellowstone and vividly portrays the soldiers, engineers, businessmen, politicians, and Native Americans who tried to build or block the Northern Pacific.