It was approved and chartered in 1864 by the 38th Congress of the United States in the national / federal capital of Washington, D.C., during the last years of the American Civil War (1861-1865), and given nearly 40 million acres (62,000 sq mi; 160,000 km2) of adjacent land grants, which it used to raise additional money in Europe (especially in President Henry Villard's home country of the new German Empire), for construction funding.

The railroad had about 6,800 miles (10,900 km) of track and served a large area, including extensive trackage in the western Federal territories and later states of Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin.

The main activities were shipping wheat and other farm products, cattle, timber, and minerals; bringing in consumer goods, transporting passengers; and selling land.

[1] The U.S. Congress granted the Northern Pacific Railroad a generous potential bonanza of 60 million acres (94,000 sq mi; 240,000 km2) of land adjacent to the line in exchange for building rail transportation to an undeveloped western territory.

The backing and promotions of famed New York City / Wall Street financier Jay Cooke, in the summer of 1870 brought the first real momentum to the railway company.

General Cass had been a vice-president and on the board of directors earlier of the Pennsylvania Railroad, one of the major dominant Eastern lines and would lead the Northern Pacific through some of its most difficult times in the later 19th century.

Attacks on survey parties and construction crews as they approached the Yellowstone region by Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Kiowa native warriors in northern Dakota and Minnesota Territories became so prevalent that the company received protection from additional mounted troops in units of the U.S.

[5] In 1886, the Northern Pacific also opened colonization / emigration offices in Europe especially the newly unified German Empire and north to the kingdoms of Scandinavia, with good reliable steamship lines, attracting Nordic farmers with package deals of cheap land and transportation and purchase deals in the similar cold higher latitudes of climate of the north-central North America continent, but with richer unplowed expansive soil.

The climate, although very cold in the continental interior heartland was still suitable for wheat, which was in high demand in the eastern and Mid-Western rapidly developing industrial cities of the United States and even growing exports overseas to Europe.

while buying all sorts of farming equipment and home supplies (some ordered and delivered through the beginnings of published mail-order catalogs from the big cities warehouses, to be shipped in by rail.

At first the railroad sold much of its holdings at low prices to land speculators in order to realize quick cash profits, and also to eliminate sizable annual tax bills.

With better railroad service and improved more educated and scientific methods of farming and soil conservation in future decades in the special unique conditions on the Great Plains.

After several years of study, Tacoma, Washington Territory near the Pacific Coast and Puget Sound for waterborne shipping port facilities was selected as the road's western terminus on July 14, 1873.

Cooke overestimated his managerial skills and failed to appreciate the limits of a banker's ability to be also a promoter, and the danger of freezing his assets in the bonds of the Northern Pacific.

Much of the coal was destined for export through Tacoma to San Francisco, California, where it would be thrown into the fireboxes of Central Pacific Railroad's steam engines locomotives.

Portland unfortunately could possibly become a second-class city if the Puget Sound's deeper and larger ports at Tacoma and nearby Seattle, Washington, were further developed and connected to the East by rail.

Using his European connections and a reputation for having "bested" Jay Gould in a battle for control of the Kansas Pacific Railroad years before, Villard solicited and raised $8,000,000 million dollars from his associates.

Livingston, like Brainerd and South Tacoma before it, would grow to encompass a large backshop handling heavy repairs for the Northern Pacific Railroad equipment.

To celebrate, and to gain national publicity for investment opportunities in his region, Villard chartered four trains to carry guests from the East to Gold Creek in western Montana Territory No expense was spared, and the list of dignitaries included Frederick Billings, former 18th President Ulysses S. Grant (served 1869-1877), only two years before his tragic death from cancer, and Villard's in-laws, the family of famed longtime abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, who had just died four years earlier.

With numerous timber trestles and grades which approached six percent, the temporary line required two M class 2-10-0s—the two largest locomotives in the world (at that time)—to handle a tiny five-car train.

Only the early death of Coster from overwork, and the promotion of Mellen to head the Morgan-controlled New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in 1903, would bring the Northern Pacific closer to the orbit of James J.

[15] In the late 1880s, the Villard regime, in another one of its costly missteps, attempted to stretch the Northern Pacific from the Twin Cities to the all-important rail hub of Chicago, Illinois.

James J. Hill, controller of the Great Northern Railway, which was completed between the Twin Cities and Puget Sound in 1893, also lacked a direct connection to Chicago.

Not to be outdone, Harriman now came up with a crafty plan: buy a controlling interest in the Northern Pacific and use its power on the Burlington to place friendly directors upon its board.

Hill, for his part, attempted to avoid future stock raids by placing his holdings in the Northern Securities Company, a move which would be undone by the Supreme Court in 1904 under the auspices of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

[19] The North Coast Limited was the premier passenger train operated by the Northern Pacific Railway between Chicago and Seattle via Butte, Montana and Homestake Pass.

[20][page needed] The Mainstreeter, which operated via Helena, Montana and Mullan Pass, continued in service through the Burlington Northern merger until Amtrak Day (May 1, 1971).

Word of the line's specialty offering traveled quickly, and before long it was using "the Great Big Baked Potato" as a slogan to promote the railroad's passenger service.

[22] When an addition was built for the Northern Pacific's Seattle commissary in 1914, a Railway Age reporter wrote, "A large trade mark, in the shape of a baked potato, 40 ft. long and 18 ft. in diameter, surmounts the roof.

Premiums such as postcards, letter openers, and spoons were also produced to promote "The Route of the Great Big Baked Potato"; the slogan served the Northern Pacific for about 50 years.