Sometimes history looks back on an individual in a light different from that of his contemporaries. Today's story is about a man of wealth, who late in life used it for good.
The subject of today’s story was the son of an Episcopal minister, born on February 25, 1848 in Hempstead, New York. Although, technically, not an Old West character, Edward Harriman was responsible for restoring one of the most prominent landmarks of the Old West.
Although Harriman dropped out of school at the age of 14, he was not a dummy. Starting out as a broker’s boy, by the age of 21 he had his own seat on the stock exchange.
By the end of the 1800’s railroads… the mainstay of bringing commerce and people from the east to the west, had gone into disrepair and bankruptcy. Harriman’s wife’s relatives owned some of these railroads. And he became intrigued with rehabilitating them. Being successful with the small lines, in 1897 Harriman took over the bankrupt Union Pacific Railroad, the first railroad to link the East and the West. In ten years Harriman made it the best managed railroad in the nation.
However, in the process, he gained control over a number of other railroads. This alarmed President Theodore Roosevelt, and in 1904 the Supreme Court broke up much of Harriman’s railroads as a violation of federal antitrust regulations. Edward Harriman developed the reputation of being a greedy robber baron.
But, along the way Harriman also did some good. He was one of the organizing forces of the Boy’s Club. He also gave 10,000 acres and a million dollars to New York to be used as a park.
And most interestingly, in 1899 he led a scientific expedition of the day’s most preeminent scientists to Alaska that was considered the “greatest junket in the history of the nation.” It’s looked upon today as vitally important in our historical knowledge of Alaska.
