The Northern Pacific Railway Company, chartered by…

The Northern Pacific Railway Company, chartered by Congress on July 2, 1864, has been formed with the goal of connecting the Great Lakes with Puget Sound on the Pacific, opening vast new lands for farming, ranching, lumbering and mining, and linking Washington and Oregon to the rest of the country.

It is granted some forty-seven million acres (one hundred and ninety thousand square kilometers) of land in exchange for building rail transportation to an undeveloped territory.

Josiah Perham (for whom Perham, Minnesota, is named) is elected its first president on December 7, 1864.