Ulysses S. Grant Signed Letter and Inaugural Ticket.

GRANT, Ulysses S.

Ulysses S. Grant Signed Letter and Inaugural Ticket.

New York: , March 3, 1881.

$5,000.00

In Stock Item Number: RRB-150473

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Rare letter signed by Ulysses S. Grant as President of the Mexican Southern Railroad Company

Letter signed by Ulysses S. Grant as President of the Mexican Southern Railroad Company. One page, on Mexican Southern Railroad Company letterhead, manuscript in another hand, the letter reads in full: New York March 8 1881 Hon Hubert O Thompson Commissioner of Public Works 31 Chambers St New York Dear Sir: I take great pleasure in presenting to you Mr Ricardo Orozco, Civil Engineer, of Mexico, who has been in the employ of the Company which I represent in locating the Mexican Southern Railroad, and who has been engaged and is now largely in-terested in the public works about the City of Mexico. Mr Orozco desires to examine the Water Works particularly, and other of the public works of this City, with a view of acquiring information which he may make available in the work to be accomplished about the capital of his own country. I would esteem it a favor if you would facilitate him in the object he has in view. Truly Yours "U.S. Grant." Mounted and framed with a ticket to Grant's Inaugural Procession, two Mexican feather art pieces (one depicting the Mexican eagle and flag and another with two American flags with the gold embossed words: Welcome to Grant Mexico 1880) and an engraved portrait of Grant. In near fine condition. Mounted and framed. The letter measures 8.25 inches by 11 inches. The entire piece measures 21 inches by 17 inches.

After leaving the presidency, Ulysses S. Grant sought to translate his public stature into commercial authority, most notably through his role in founding and leading the Mexican Southern Railroad Company. Developed in collaboration with the Mexican diplomat and statesman Matías Romero, the venture aimed to build a strategic passenger-and-freight corridor linking Puebla and Oaxaca, strengthening regional commerce while attracting U.S. capital to Mexican infrastructure. The company was incorporated in New York on March 1, 1881, with Grant serving as its president and functioning as the project’s principal public representative to investors and the press. Despite these high-profile beginnings, the enterprise was weakened by slow surveying, construction delays, and persistent financial instability, entering bankruptcy by the mid-1880s. Under subsequent ownership, construction resumed and the line was completed in 1892, operating profitably for a time before its eventual nationalization in 1936, a trajectory that underscores both the ambition and volatility of transnational railroad development in the late nineteenth century.