Monte Cristo Railway Co. signed by Charles Sanger Mellen - 1902 dated Railroad Stock Certificate

Stock signed twice by Charles Sanger Mellen. On the front as president and on the transfer on the back. Historic railroad! Rare!

The Monte Cristo Railway Company was officially established on August 29, 1900, following a significant corporate restructuring of the bankrupt Everett and Monte Cristo Railway. The original rail infrastructure, constructed in 1893 with funding from financial magnate John D. Rockefeller, was designed to transport gold and silver ore from the remote Cascade Mountains to a specialized smelter in Everett, Washington. However, devastating autumn floods in 1897 severely damaged the tracks traversing the treacherous Robe Canyon, leading to a complete operational shutdown and financial ruin for the original syndicate. To salvage the investment, Rockefeller’s trusted advisor, Frederick T. Gates, negotiated a complex deal with the Great Northern Railway. Gates employed Japanese contract labor crews to meticulously rebuild the crucial Hartford-to-Monte Cristo section, revitalizing the line under the newly consolidated corporate umbrella.

The newly formed Monte Cristo Railway Company played a pivotal role in igniting a second mining boom in the region, ensuring a steady flow of ore from the summer of 1900 through the autumn of 1903. Despite the successful reconstruction, the extreme weather conditions in the Cascade Mountains and the persistent threat of seasonal washouts posed significant financial challenges to independent operation. Consequently, in 1902, the line was sold to the Northern Pacific Railway, which integrated the tracks into its network as the Monte Cristo Branch. The route continued to transport dwindling mineral shipments until the Panic of 1907 caused a collapse in local mining production. Although parts of the line were later repurposed for logging and tourist excursions, the rails were completely removed by the 1930s, and the historic right-of-way was subsequently transformed into Washington’s scenic Mountain Loop Highway.

Charles Sanger Mellen (1852-1927) Charles Sanger Mellen was an American railroad man whose career culminated in the presidencies of the Northern Pacific Railway 1897-1903 and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad 1903-1913. Mellen was born in Lowell, Mass. His family soon moved to Concord, N.H. where he attended high school. Rather than attending college, he began his railroad career as a clerk at the Northern New Hampshire Railroad in Concord in 1870. After a short time at the Central Vermont Railroad and back to the Northern New Hampshire Railroad, he moved to the Boston and Lowell Railroad (B&L) where he was promoted to Superintendent. The Boston and Lowell enjoyed revenues from leasing use of its lines into Boston to the Boston and Maine Railroad. Its policies led the B&M to build its own line into Boston and to fight with the B&L to the New Hampshire courts. Mellen was the President of the B&L when it lost its court case, and ceased independent operations in 1887 when it was leased to the Boston and Maine Railroad.

In 1892, he became general manager of the New York and New England Railroad, during a time when it was engaged in a bitter war with the New Haven. Charles P. Clark, the New Haven's president, hired him away from his competitor in November 1892. Mellen later testified that "[Clark] said I was too much of a nuisance on the New England." Mellen came to the attention of J. P. Morgan when he drove such a hard bargain with the New York Central that Chauncey Depew complained to Morgan, a director of both the New Haven and the New York Central. Morgan's bank had become receiver of the Northern Pacific in August 1893. Mellen had an active role in the reorganization and became president of the NP when it emerged from receivership in 1896.

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