William Francis Bailey

William Francis Bailey was an American writer born in 1861. Available catalog and audiobook sources consistently identify him as an author of transportation history, and he is best known for The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad, first published in 1906.

That book looks closely at the planning, construction, and early history of the railroad link across the United States, showing Bailey’s interest in large public works and the people behind them. Library listings also connect his name with other nonfiction works, including Asparagus in California, suggesting a practical, informational style rather than a literary one.

Clear biographical details beyond his birth year are hard to confirm from the sources I found, so it is safest to describe him simply as an early-20th-century American nonfiction author whose surviving reputation rests mainly on his historical writing about transportation.