The result of the three factors was a corporation bonded at an extremely high rate. The cost of road in 1870 was reported to be $106,245,978, or $102,951 per mile, against which was a capitalization of $107,907,300, or $104,561 per mile, of which $32,715 per mile was stock, $26,080 government bonds, and $45,765 first mortgage, land grant, and income bonds. In 1873 the net earnings were $4,092,032, and the interest on the funded debt, not including the government interest, was $3,403,660. In 1874 the figures were $5,291,243 and $3,431,720; in other words, the corporation started with a heavy handicap, which its monopoly of transcontinental business at first helped to overcome, but which grew heavier and heavier as the years went on. During the seventies, to repeat, the Union Pacific enjoyed generally large prosperity. The volume of stock outstanding remained the same, the bonded indebtedness but slightly increased, and the ratio of operating expenses to receipts declined. The first dividend was paid in 1875; in 1876 and 1877 8 per cent was declared, in 1878 5½ per cent, and in 1879 6 per cent. In 1880, however, a consolidation took place with the Kansas Pacific and Denver Pacific railroads, and this operation may well receive somewhat detailed consideration. The Kansas Pacific, as well as the Union Pacific, was a creation of the Acts of 1862 and 1864, which required it to be constructed from Kansas City westwardly to form a junction with the Union Pacific at a point on the one hundredth meridian. Later, an Act of July 3, 1866, authorized it to change its route, and to connect with the Union Pacific at a point not more than fifty miles westwardly from the meridian of Denver in Colorado.[463] Like the Union Pacific the Kansas Pacific was built by means of construction contracts, which resulted in a total capitalization on its 638 miles of line of $9,437,950 in stock and $22,651,000 in bonds, or $14,793 and $33,455 respectively per mile,—high figures in view of the comparatively level character of the country traversed.[464] The road was not a paying one. It was poorly built and poorly managed, and running parallel with the Union Pacific, it had to meet competition of a very bitter kind. The report of Mr. Calhoun, expert accountant for the United States Pacific Railway Commission of 1887, showed that the total receipts of the road from 1867 to 1879 had aggregated $9,220,218, while the bond and interest account, exclusive of United States interest, had amounted to $15,745,287; leaving a deficit of $6,525,069, or, including the United States accrued interest, of $11,330,772.[465] That is, the Kansas Pacific was in a state of chronic insolvency. In 1874 it was placed in the hands of receivers, and the following year, by an arrangement with its creditors, it funded a considerable amount of overdue interest.[466]