consolidating companies, without equivalent value received. The Union Pacific Railway Company, therefore, began its career in 1880 in worse shape than the Union Pacific Railroad Company, which had preceded it, for it suffered not only from an initial watering of stocks and bonds, but from a watering of assets which had followed. Including the government subsidy and accrued interest thereon, the total bonds and stocks of the company in 1880 were $179,058,902, or $98,329 per mile, of which $27,876 were stock, $45,372 mortgage bonds, and $25,081 government subsidy and interest. The figures per mile were slightly lower than in 1870, and yet the water in the capitalization was more abundant, for the average value of the assets had declined still more. A dividend-paying road had been combined with non-dividend payers, with the result of large profits to the promoters of the consolidations, but of serious harm to the solvent party. Between 1880 and 1883 a number of branches were constructed, to provide funds for which the capital stock of the Railway Company was increased $10,000,000. Of these the Denver & South Park was constructed in the years 1881 to 1883, and was the last of Mr. Gould’s gifts to the parent line. This road was handled by several construction companies, in the last of which Gould took a quarter interest, receiving stock of the Denver & South Park Railroad Company as a dividend on his investment.[482] In November, 1880, acting in behalf of the Union Pacific Railway Company, he bought the stock of the Denver road at par for cash, benefiting in his capacity as quarter owner by his action as representative and stockholder of the Union Pacific.[483] In relation to the road Mr. Charles F. Adams, Jr., subsequently said: “The chief source of revenue ... was in carrying men and material into Colorado to dig holes in the ground called mines, and until it was discovered that there was nothing in those mines the business was immense.”[484] A more important and genuinely beneficial project was the organization in 1881 of the Oregon Short Line Railway Company to construct and operate a railway from Granger on the Union Pacific to and into the state of Oregon, a distance of 610 miles, with the intention of securing the Washington and Oregon business. The Northern Pacific was in financial difficulties at the time, and it was not expected that it could anticipate the new road; but even though this expectation was disappointed, and the Oregon Short Line was second in reaching the disputed territory, its value was great and steadily grew.[485] The road was built by the construction department of the Union Pacific, and was financed by the organization of a subsidiary corporation which issued stock and bonds to an amount of $25,000 per mile, one-half of the stock being reserved in the Union Pacific treasury for the purpose of control, and the Union Pacific guaranteeing the payment of interest on the bonds.