On April 15, 1873, the Hooper, Boyle & Seymour Construction Company started laying rails at Section 53 northward, and arrived at Mile Post 101 on January 6, 1874. The completion of this 50 mile section made a total of 164 miles of road now ready for operation. Freight trains loaded to the guards with materials and supplies followed closely behind the track layers, and the road was swamped with traffic. At Stevens Point and Menasha, huge quantities of goods of every character awaited the movement of trains northward.
From June 1874 to June 1875, the half finished road handled 175,380 tons of building material, grain, provisions, wagons and implements, live stock, lumber, iron and steel products, brick, coal, and merchandise; most of this tonnage going north in development of the new territory. Passenger traffic became so heavy that the two regular passenger trains could accommodate but a portion of it, and freight trains carried one or more passenger cars to take the overflow.
The period 1873-1875 may be called the Season of Discontent for the Wisconsin Central. The financial stringency due to the panic of 1873, put a crimp in the progress of road construction; Phillips & Colby were finding more and more difficulty in raising money.
Gardner Colby, and Phillips & Colby were under contract to build and equip the road, assisted in the project by funds subscribed by towns and counties, but had expended an amount exceeding, the aid bonds in building the first 164 miles. No further private aid was in sight. Relations became strained between Phillips & Colby Company and their sub-contractors.
Finally, in 1874, Hooper, Boyle & Seymour broke their contract, moved their men and equipment out of the woods and quit the job cold. Phillips & Colby Company was in a tight jam and there was every prospect that they would fail to complete their part of the contract. When Hooper, Boyle & Seymour threw up the job, Phillips was left high and dry, a victim of his own short-sighted, unscrupulous methods of doing business. Here he was stranded with two pieces or unfinished railroad.
Between the unfinished ends of iron lay the most difficult portion of the entire route - 57 miles of dense standing timber, swampy lowlands, alternating with rough, rocky highlands, deeply eroded in the creek bottoms.
In desperation, Phillips & Colby decided to handle the construction work themselves. They attempted to gather together a construction crew, but it was an almost hopeless task; for the available laborers, lumberjacks, and teamsters were green hands and understood nothing of railroad building.
Such was the situation on the Wisconsin Central in 1874. In his endeavors to finish up the gap between Mile Post 101 and Penokee Gap, Phillips was unable to turn a wheel. Citizens of Portage City were clamoring for action by Phillips & Colby to build the promised line to Stevens Point. Ashland business men hammered away for a finished outlet south of their city, calling on Phillips & Colby to execute the work according to contract. Elijah B. Phillips continued to take a raw hiding from newspapers and friends of the Wisconsin Central and from the tone and temper of news columns, it was apparent that he had lost entirely the esteem and respect of those who were interested in the project.
He was bottled up in the backwoods where verbal commands and threats failed to impress the standing pines and rocky ledges. Stagnation resulted, and for two and one half years the 57 mile gap between rail ends remained a combination footpath and wagon trail, and a horrendous nightmare to Phillips and Colby.