Over the next hour and 15 minutes, well hear from local authors about the areas history, politics and literary landscape. We begin with a visit to Montana State university and a look inside the collection. A well known antenna author, 16 memoirs and novels, he was raised here in montana. At her invitation and possibly a little bit about what we can do if she decided to deposit the collection with us and came back and wrote a proposal and a key feature of our proposal was that we said we would digitize the entire collection in less than a year so because digitize the entire thing is available on the internet for anyone in the world to see. Primarily we have documents. We have a lot of sound recordings and a lot of photographs, diary entries, obviously many books manuscripts for some books we have as many as seven manuscript versions so a lot that goes to the writers process colin medical records, all of that. He loves manual typewriters. We have many photographs of him in the archives a
And ceo of the association of american railroads. Jim cb, commissioner of the southwest chief and Front Range Passenger Rail commission, and jennifer homendy, Member National Transportation Safety board. I continue to be a strong supporter of our real industry both freight and passenger. Rail service is safe and efficient. It also reduces congestion on our highways and spurs economic growth. In mississippi, for example, we have 26 Freight Railroads, 2,400 miles of track, five of the seven class ones, two longdistance amtrak routes, 10 stations, and more than 100,000 annual riders. Rail is vital to mississippi. I have been a tireless advocate for the restoration of the gulf coast Passenger Service, which was suspended in 2005 after hurricane katrina. With funding support from dot, amtrak, and the states, i am pleased to report that mississippi, louisiana, and alabama are likely once again to have this amtrak route and that will give mississippi a third amtrak route. Restoration of this
Interested in history. But then people would ask again, why are you interested in history, what does that have to do with the question im asking you . But i have the same experience of a remarkable teacher in Junior High School who was a retired military officer so im embarrassed to say i believe it was james true then, but he was known to all students as colonel trueden. He was a mature man, with a long military career but someone just starting out as a teacher. She was excited and interested about everything and trying to find his way into this new second career. And i think that that sort of, him thinking this is an adventure, sort of brought the students along with him. And while i suspect i was probably in that small town, probably categorized as the student most likely to end up in Reform School if not prison. [laughter] i did win the history award when i graduated. It did not leave me directly here. I think that love for history that someone conveys their own love for history, t
Map. Was a modest town and a railroad stop. Divorce en the first came. The media started to focus on reno and that was the publicity they didnt have to try to get. People were fast nayed by this little western town where these people were coming and getting divorces. So that was the beginning of kind of tourist trade for reno. The state of nevada legalized gambling in 1931 and depam bling was on the pooks before then but they said depampling is legal and we mean it and open clubs and casinos and that then became the heart of the tourist industry through the 1970s and 1980s. So it was the combination of being the divorce capital of the world where wideopen gambling was possible that made reno an International Tourist destination. Vertent. Ort of inadd reenoove has laws on the books but it wasnt intentional. They had transient. They were working on mining or the railroad. And then at the same time, nevada had a lot of grounds for divorce. There was no differences at that time. You had to
Railroad from the west and the Union Pacific railroad from the east met upon a summit in utah. It was here on may 10th, 19 1859 that Leland Stanford wrote broke the last site, also known as the gold site joining the rails of the Transcontinental Railroad and forever linking Stanford University to this transformational event and the changes it brought to california and the nation. The completion of the Transcontinental Railroads connected the vast expanse of the United States with safe and convenient transport. Reducing coast to coast to travel from six months down to one week. In addition the railroad evoked social change through migration, Economic Growth and the introduction of Chinese Labor to the west. While at the same time delivering a death blow to the way of life of the plains indians. Another of the consequences was great wealth to the big builders of the roadway. Among them california senator Leland Stanford. This fortune and the land that Leland Stanford purchased with it wa