Los Angeles County
Biographies
HENRY EDWARDS HUNTINGTON
HUNTINGTON, HENRY EDWARDS, Capitalist, Railroad Building and Industrial Captain, Los Angeles, Cal., was born Feb. 27, 1850, at Oneonta, N.Y., the son of Solon Huntington and Harriet (Saunders) Huntington. His father was a man of means and a respected citizen in the section in which he lived. His uncle, Collis P. Huntington, was one of the great railroad builders of the West.
The family is an old one, of English descent. The first of the name settled in Norwich, Conn., in 1632, shortly after the founding of the colony. He brought education and good traditions with him, and his descendants have left creditable records behind them.
Although Collis P. Huntington, the uncle, the master for a generation of the Southern Pacific, was the first to achieve greatness in railroads, and his fortune and influence had much to do with the position of H. E. Huntington, yet the latter has created a great independent career for himself. It is, in fact, because of his great ability and success in various ventures that C. P. Huntington chose him as his successor. And he has laid an independent foundation for an even greater fortune, has created an entirely new system of railroads, not yielding in importance even to his uncle’s achievements, and in the upbuilding of a city and section has taken a part that is perhaps unique in America. He is known as the greatest electric railroad building in the world.
He was educated in the public and private schools of his native town. At a comparatively early age he went into a hardware store in Oneonta. When twenty years old he went with one of the large hardware firms of New York City, and remained in their employ for a number of years. His next business was at St. Albans, W. Va., in lumbering and lumber manufacturing, which he followed six years.
The experience he had gathered in the lumber business recommended him to Collis P. Huntington, and the latter appointed him to the responsible post of Superintendent of Construction of the Huntington lines, then building from Louisville to New Orleans, known as the Chesapeake, Ohio & Southwestern. In 1884 he was superintendent; in 1885 receiver, and from1886 to 1890, vice president and general manager of the Kentucky Central Railway. From 1890 to 1892 he was vice president and general manager of the Elizabethtown, Lexington & Big Sandy, and Ohio Valley Railways. His next move was to the Southern Pacific, his uncle’s greatest system, and he was, in turn, assistant to the president (1892-1900), second vice president (March-June, 1900), and first vice president.
Shortly after taking up his headquarters in San Francisco he acquired the San Francisco street railways. In 1898 he sold this property and began to buy into the Los Angeles street railroads. The development of the Los Angeles street railway system and of the radiating interurban electric system, which began with the date of his entry, constitute the unique achievement of his life.
One by one he bought up all competing lines until he was sole owner of the street system. He extended until the whole great area of the city was a solid network of tracks, and the mileage and the number of cars operated made it the second or third largest urban system in the United States.
He bought an existing electric line to Pasadena, incorporated it under the name of the Pacific Electric, and began a campaign of construction. He build an immense station of skyscraper construction as the nucleus in Los Angeles. Then he laid tracks to outlying districts, until it was by far the greatest interurban system on earth, with a thousand miles of double and quadruple tracks, and a valuation of approximately $100,000.000. The result was the transformation of Los Angeles into a great modern city and the development of the country within a fifty-mile radius to the highest standard of civilized life.
In addition he bought or built, chiefly the latter, the Los Angeles Interurban Railway, Los Angeles & Redondo Railway, routes running from the city to the beaches; the San Bernardino Valley Traction Co., San Bernardino Interurban, Redlands Central, and Riverside & Arlington, all important traction lines in the orange belt, with scores of miles of track. His final work was the formation of a plan which is to unite in an electric network all that part of California from Santa Barbara to San Diego, and from the ocean back to Redlands, creating a system with more than 2000 miles double and quadruple track. At this state he sold out to the Southern Pacific, who, however, will continue his plans.
He is an officer in numberless important corporations, and is the chief figure in power development in Southern California, dominant in companies whose combined capital runs close to the $100,000,000 mark. He is the greatest single land owner in Southern California, owning tens of thousands of acres of city and country property. He is a director in the Huntington Land & Improvement Co., L. A. Railway-Land Co., Huntington Redondo Co., Oak Knoll Co.; vice president and director San Gabriel Valley Water Co., Pacific Light & Power Co., and a director in eleven other California companies and banks. He is chairman of the Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., one of the largest shipbuilding concerns in America, which has built many of the biggest United States battleships. He is a director of the Chicago & Alton Ry., Clover Leaf Ry., Central Pacific, Colorado & Southern Ry., Des Moines & Fort Dodge Ry., Iowa Central Ry., C. & O. Ry., Minnesota & St. Louis Ry., Oregon & California Ry., Toledo, St. Louis & Newton Ry., Occidental & Oriental Steamship Co.
His activities are legion. His property holdings range from hotels to farms. He is the greatest builder of resorts on the Pacific Coast, probably in the world, and has created entire resort cities. He is the great force which has been behind the phenomenal growth of Southern California, a growth without comparison in its quality as well as in quantity, that has created Los Angeles and more than a score of the most beautifully built and highly improved cities in the country.
He has built, near Pasadena, a country estate of rare beauty, in an unrivaled setting of mountains and orange groves. There he has brought a priceless collection of art treasures, and a library costing in the millions. In the great park surrounding he is having planted one of the most comprehensive tropical botanical gardens to be found on the continent.
Mr. Huntington is, or has been, a member of the Metropolitan, Union League, City Midday clubs of New York City; the California, Jonathan, Los Angeles Country, of Los Angeles; Pasadena Country, San Gabriel Country, Bolsa Chica, of Pasadena; the Pacific Union, the Bohemian, and the Unitarian, of San Francisco; and the Oneonta Club of Oneonta New York.
Transcribed 4-30-10
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 403, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta.
1913.
© 2010 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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