Within little more than a quarter of a century the advance of industry and commerce had made the United States of Lincoln's day seem small and petty. The census of 1905 showed over twelve billion dollars invested in factories and nearly five and one half million wage earners employed. In that year, the total value of manufactured products was over fourteen billion dollars--fifteen times the amount turned out in 1860. As late as 1882 the United States imported several hundred thousand tons of steel rails annually, but within ten years the import had fallen to 134 tons and no less than 15,000 tons were exported. At the close of the Civil War about 3000 tons of Bessemer steel were produced annually, but within twenty years over two million tons were put out every twelve months. The building of railways more than kept pace with the growth of the population and the increase in manufacturing. There were 30,000 miles of lines in 1860; 52,000 in 1870; 166,000 in 1890; and 242,000 in 1910. Beginning at first with the construction of lines between strategic centers like Boston and Albany, and Philadelphia and Reading, the leaders in this new enterprise grew more bold. They pushed rapidly into the West where there were no cities of magnitude and no prospect of developing a profitable business within the immediate future. Capital flowed into the railways like water; European investors caught the fever; farmers and merchants along prospective lines bought stocks and bonds, expecting to reap a harvest from increased land values and business, only to find their paper valueless on account of preferred claims for construction; and the whole West was aflame with dreams of a new Eldorado to be created by transportation systems. The era of feverish construction was shortly followed by the combination of lines and the formation of grand trunk railways and particular "systems." In 1869, Cornelius Vanderbilt united the Hudson River and New York Central lines, linking the metropolis and Buffalo, and four years later he opened the way to Chicago by leasing the Lake Shore Michigan and Southern. About the same time two other eastern companies, the Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio secured western connections which let them into Chicago.