The Granite Railway was the first chartered railroad in the United States.
It began running from Quincy, Massachusetts, to the Neponset River, a distance of three miles, on October 7, 1826.
Its principal cargo consisted of blocks of granite for use in building the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown.
The railway later became part of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad.
In 1939, a night at the Essex House on Central Park South cost $6. Today, a night in the same hotel starts at $185.
The women’s rights leader Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) did not live to see the 19th Amendment adopted in 1920 guaranteeing women the right to vote. But Anthony had voted illegally in a Rochester, New York, election in 1872, and refused to pay the fine that followed.
The tallest hills in San Francisco are Twin Peaks, Mount Davidson, and Mount Sutro, all more than 900 feet tall. The best known hills, Nob Hill and Telegraph Hill, are smaller, between 300 and 400 feet.
Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner collaborated indirectly on the 1944 movie version of Hemingway’s novel To Have and Have Not. Jules Furthman and William Faulkner wrote the screenplay of the film, now best remembered for bringing together Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. When Hemingway declined to write the screenplay himself, director Howard Hawks reportedly said,…
Harpers Ferry is in what is now West Virginia (then part of Virginia). John Brown led a party of 22 in seizing the U.S. arsenal there in October 1859. Brown, an abolitionist born in Torrington, Connecticut, planned to arm the local slaves and start a full-scale rebellion, but his plan was foiled by state and…
For late 19th-century immigrants from Europe, to travel to America in “steerage” meant a passage below decks, near the ship’s steering gear. The price for these uncomfortable but low-fare accommodations was about $15.