Scope and Contents Thomas S. Dobbins and Company was a financial firm in Chicago, Illinois, headed by its namesake, Thomas Stuart Dobbins, from 1872 to 1874. The purpose of the company seems to have been to fund construction for the Chicago and Pacific Railroad, which also had Dobbins as its president. The railroad was responsible for constructing the Bloomingdale Line and the rest of the Elgin Subdivision, a line between Chicago and Elgin, Illinois. The Chicago and Pacific Railroad was absorbed into the Chicago,...