assumed the presidency of the Northern Pacific in 1881, in time to complete and celebrate the opening of its main line in 1883. His celebration was elaborate, yet the _Nation_ remarked that the "mere achievement of laying a continuous rail across the continent has long since been taken out of the realm of marvels, and the country can never feel again the thrill which the joining of the Central and Union Pacific lines gave it." The land grant railways completed these four eastern connections across the frontier in the period of culmination. Private capital added a fifth in the new route through Denver and Ogden, controlled by the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy and the Denver and Rio Grande. The Burlington, built along the old Republican River trail to Denver, had competed with the Union Pacific for the traffic of that point since June, 1882. West of Denver the narrow gauge of the Denver and Rio Grande had been advancing since 1870. General William J. Palmer and a group of Philadelphia capitalists had, in 1870, secured a Colorado charter for their Denver and Rio Grande. Started in 1871, it had reached the new settlement at Colorado Springs that autumn, and had continued south in later years. Like other roads it had progressed slowly in the panic years. In 1876 it had been met at Pueblo by the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé. From Pueblo it contested successfully with this rival for the grand cañon of the Arkansas, and built up that valley through the Gunnison country and across the old Ute reserve, to Grand Junction. From the Utah line it had been continued to Ogden by an allied corporation. A through service to Ogden, inaugurated in the summer of 1883, brought competition to the Union Pacific throughout its whole extent.