The grading was commenced May 18th, 1868, and the same fall was completed to Cheyenne, one hundred and six miles. Owing to the delay of Congress in acting on the bond proposition as well as on account of the financial stringency the Union Pacific Railroad Company was then encountering, the latter was not able to carry out its contract in regard to the completion of the Denver Pacific Railroad, and the arrangement was accordingly cancelled. An arrangement was then entered into with the Kansas Pacific Railway by which the latter Company took a certain amount of stock in the Denver Pacific Railroad and proceeded with its construction, completing the line between Cheyenne and Denver on June 22nd, 1870. There was great rejoicing over the event. The last spike,--one of solid silver contributed by the miners of Georgetown, Colo.,--was driven by Governor Evans of Colorado. The first engine to enter Denver was the first engine that the Union Pacific Railroad owned. It had been the first to enter Cheyenne, also the first into Ogden. In 1872 the road passed into the control of the Kansas Pacific Railway Company by purchase who operated it until the consolidation of both lines with the Union Pacific Railroad Company in 1880. The Kansas Pacific Railway was completed into Denver in August 1870, and immediately embarked in the through trans-continental traffic from Kansas City and points east thereof, via Denver and the Denver Pacific Railroad. This was, of course, in competition with the Main Line of the Union Pacific Railroad who in accepting business at Cheyenne were losing the haul from Omaha to that point. The Kansas Pacific Railway and the Denver Pacific Railroad people were insistent and with no little degree of correctness that under the original Charter the Union Pacific Railroad was compelled to accept business from all connections,--but the terms thereof were not fixed and instead of accepting a division based on the mileage of the respective lines as insisted upon by the two lines named, the Union Pacific Railroad officials demanded a constructive mileage that would result in their line from Cheyenne to Ogden receiving six tenths of their local rates between those points when the business was competition with their long haul via Omaha. An agreement to work on this basis pending judicial decision was made between the two interests in September 1874. The question would not down, it was brought before Congress, Courts, and Arbitrators constituting a "Cause Celebre" the Pro-rata controversy.