Dakota Datebook: Jay Cooke and Company and the Bonanzas

September 18, 2018- When the Northern Pacific Railroad asked Jay Cooke’s banking company to be its financial agent in 1865, Cooke was leery of the offer. Northern Pacific needed help in funding construction and selling bonds, but this was a large undertaking, even for the Jay Cooke and Company, a firm that had financed the Union in the Civil War. The railroad was to be the largest enterprise...