The Railroad Barons

Another thing

difficult to recall

would be

how the railroad barons

were the real estate giants

of their day,

when real estate

was the real estate

of those putting down all those tracks,

buying up land

along those lines

out from under folks

to develop not cities

but a whole country.

Even the Pinkertons existed

because of these guys,

watching out for saboteurs

and other intrigue

the way later eras

would look at everything else.

And now

all this exists

only in cliffhanger fiction.