This is for all the late-1800s railroads that attached the magic "& Pacific" to their names. Visionaries, manipulators and con-men all found investors willing to help them build relentlessly westward until they ran out of either land or money. Usually money.

Perhaps the poster child for this frenzy was the "Memphis, El Paso & Pacific" which never reached Memphis, El Paso OR the Pacific. Instead, it chugged to a halt after just 20 miles of Texas.

But those heroic efforts were not wasted--and that's why we celebrate them here in a caption. They would turn out to be good practice for the Internet mania more than a century later.

(This logo is from the Northern Pacific, which was completed but never really successful on its own. It's now part of BNSF.)