of this company, we addressed a letter to the secretary of state of Iowa, and received the following answer:-- DES MOINES, December 7, 1872. DEAR SIR:--In answer to yours of the 6th inst., I will say that there is no line of railroad from Sioux City to Council Bluffs, run as one road, or by one company. The Sioux City and Pacific railroad runs from Sioux City to Missouri Valley, and the Chicago and Northwestern (Cedar Rapids and Missouri River) from Missouri Valley to Council Bluffs. The corporators of the Sioux City and Pacific company were L. B. Crocker, M. K. Jessup, James F. Wilson, A. W. Hubbard, Chas. A. Lombard, Frank Schuchardt, W. B. Allison, and John I. Blair. Yours truly, ED. WRIGHT, _Secretary of State_. Among the present directors are to be found the names of Oakes Ames, John I. Blair, D. C. Blair, and G. M. Dodge. Ames was a member of the late congress, and G. M. Dodge is an ex-member. Among the directors of the Cedar Rapids & Missouri river company appear the names of John B. Alley, and James F. Wilson, who were members of congress when the act of July, 1864, was passed, amending the charter of the Union Pacific, and making the large grants to the company designated by the president to build the Sioux City branch of the Union Pacific railroad. Wm. B. Allison has been a member of congress almost continuously from 1860 to the present time. This Sioux City branch seems to have been a special favorite with certain congressmen. It received the lion's share of lands, getting five times as many sections per mile as the main lines, and this, too, for the purpose of building a railroad running east of south, instead of west--the direction of the main line--following the course of the Missouri river on the east side thereof for the entire length of this branch, and crossing on the bridge to the Nebraska shore at Omaha.