An increase in railroad construction between 1860 and 1900 changed the United States, helping make it the industrial nation it is today. As the chief system of transportation of goods and people, railroads were essential to American industry. Where railroads went, towns and cities with bustling new commerce arose, all dependent on the railways for shipments of food and goods. The construction of the railroads spawned huge new industries in steel, iron, and coal. No other business so dramatically stimulated and embodied the industrialization process. In The Rise of Industrial America: A People's History of the Post-Reconstruction Era author Page Smith comments: "In retrospect it appeared it had been the lack of adequate transportation, above all else, that had kept civilization moving at a mere camel's pace, or a mule's or ox's pace, prior to the railroad era … the railroads accelerated the...