This $1000 GBW&StP second-mortgage bond carried an 8% interest rate.
The Green Bay, Winona & St. Paul
Railroad purchased the assets of the bankrupt Green Bay & Minnesota on January
20, 1881. The purchase was funded with $10 million in stock, $1.6 million
in a first mortgage at 6% and $3.8 million in a second mortgage at 8%.
Actual business did not match the optimism of the new railroad; in January
1885 the GBW&StP defaulted on interest payments. The railroad floated
in and out of of receivership throughout the 1880s. In 1895 a lawsuit by a
holder of five shares of GBW&StP stock brought the railroad to its knees and
the railroad was forced into bankruptcy, emerging as the Green Bay
& Western the following year.