Crossroads of a Continent: Missouri Railroads, 1851-1921 tells the story of the state's railroads and their vital role in American history. Missouri and St. Louis, its largest city, are strategically located within the American Heartland. On July 4, 1851, when the Pacific Railroad of Missouri began construction in St. Louis, the city took its first step to becoming a major hub for railroads. By the 1920s, the state was crisscrossed with railways reaching toward all points of the compass. Authors Peter A. Hansen, Don L. Hofsommer, and Carlos Arnaldo Schwantes explore the history of Missouri railroads through personal, absorbing tales of the cutthroat competition between cities and between railroads that meant the difference between prosperity and obscurity, the ambitions and dreams of visionaries Fred Harvey and Arthur Stilwell, and the country's excitement over the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904. Beautifully illustrated with over 100 color images of historical railway ephemera, Crossroads of a Continent is an engaging history of key American railroads and of Missouri's critical contribution to the American story.

The Iron Horse forever changed the American West, from a wild frontier to a network of scattered settlements tied together by steel rails. Behind the romantic image of the galloping Iron Horse, however, lies a rich history of American business activity. Railway giants have dominated this history, but small companies such as the Quanah, Acme & Pacific Railway Company (QA&P), a short line that operated in four counties of northwestern Texas from near the turn of the century into the 1980s, had just as great an impact in their areas of operation as the giants did on the national scene.
The QA&P developed in an era when railroads were tightly regulated by the Railroad Commission of Texas and the federal Interstate Commerce Commission. The in-depth historical analysis of an American short line railroad presented here is in essence the study of all such carriers in the era before deregulation. Fully illustrated with photographs and memorabilia, this volume covers the Quanah Route's birth, valiant struggle for life, and eventual demise in a changing regulatory and competitive environment. This then is a history not only of a railroad but also of its service area, particularly during one of the last great railroad construction booms, which took place in West Texas during the 1920s.
Through the years of the QA&P's life, energetic men such as Sam Lazarus and Charles Sommer juggled political and financial concerns against the changing times, Lazarus making the deal by which the QA&P became a subsidiary of the St. Louis-San Francisco (Frisco) road. In the end, the "good roads movement," trucking industry, and growing American passion for the private automobile spelled the end of the railroads' golden age as the prime carrier of passengers and products. As traced by Don L. Hofsommer in the full archives of the QA&P, the history of this short line railroad embodies the pulse and pathos of a place through the changing times of the twentieth century.

At one point in time, no place in Iowa was more than a few miles from an active line of rail track. In this splendid companion volume to Steel Trails of Hawkeyeland (IUP, 2005), H. Roger Grant and Don L. Hofsommer explore the pivotal role that railroads played in the urban development of the state as well as the symbiotic relationship Iowa and its rails shared. With more than 400 black-and-white photographs, a solid inventory of depots and locations, and new information that is sure to impress even the most well-versed railfan, this detailed history of the state's railroads including the Chicago & North Western, Cedar Rapids & Iowa City, and the Iowa Northern will be an essential reference for railroad fans and historians, artists, and model railroad builders."

The Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern Railway was an important part of the commercial life of the upper Midwest during the age of railways. Don L. Hofsommer uses the BC&N as the vehicle for his investigation of the birth, evolution, and disappearance of an important regional carrier, offering an inside look at the struggles of a small railway to stay relevant while railroad empires were being built. More than a bit player, the BC&N might have become even more important had plans gone forward to utilize its rails in a campaign to reach the Pacific. The struggle of the Cedar Rapids road and its corporate ancestors to place Minneapolis-St. Paul and St. Louis in competition with Chicago via a north/south route forms a major part of the book's narrative, and the book also offers a history of the company's three-state service territory (Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota) from the dawn of the age of railways into the 20th century. The book includes more than 200 photographs selected from Hofsommer's extensive library of historic photographs documenting the history of the BC&N Railway.

"Steel Trails of Hawkeyeland offers a comprehensive examination of railroads in Iowa from the introduction of the iron horse to the present. It is more than a study of a single, albeit significant American state. Hofsommer superbly relates local events to the national picture. His is a one-of-a-kind volume." H. Roger Grant, author of Follow the Flag: A History of the Wabash Railroad Company

In the time of jet airplanes and interstate highways, the Internet and e-commerce, it is difficult to comprehend and appreciate the impact that railroads had on Iowa s landscape in terms not just of transportation service and economic development, but of political, social, and cultural linkage as well. Railroads helped to define the character of America, and that certainly was the case in Iowa. Pioneer lines penetrated the interior from established Mississippi River communities during the state s early railroad era, and later opened up huge tracts for agricultural opportunity as well as urban development.

A wide-ranging survey of Iowa s railroad experience, Steel Trails of Hawkeyeland offers a snapshot of a fascinating and critically important element in the state s history, and emphasizes the tight symbiotic relationship between Iowa and its railways. Packed with more than 250 photographs, this is a thorough and engaging book."