WILLIAM SHARON

William Sharon played an important role in early Nevada. Born in Ohio on January 9, 1821, he practiced law in St. Louis then pursued business in Illinois. With the 1849 Gold Rush, Sharon traveled to California where he engaged in business and real estate, but he lost his earnings in stock speculation.Despite his failure, the newly formed Bank of California selected Sharon in 1864 to represent its interests on the Comstock. He arrived during a mining slump when businesses needed loans to survive. Banks were lending money at three to five percent interest per month. Sharon offered funds at two percent per month, undercutting competition. Customers flocked to the Bank of California. When loans defaulted, Sharon foreclosed on mines and mills. His mills lowered prices, taking business from his borrowers, driving even more properties into his grasp.Within a few years, Sharon established the Bank of California as the primary Comstock monopoly. Many saw Sharon's petite, weak frame as the antithesis of the robust early period of Comstock independence. Sharon represented changing times, corporate control, and the loss of frontier honesty and self reliance. Nevertheless, his network of mills and mines could survive while exploiting poorer ores between richer discoveries. With political machinations, Sharon won state subsidies to construct his Virginia and Truckee Railroad, which efficiently transported ore to mills while returning with other goods, including lumber.In 1872, Sharon sought to replace the aging U.S. Senator James Nye. Competitor John P. Jones, former Crown Point Mine superintendent, was more popular, so Sharon suggested Jones had set the dreadful Yellow Jacket Fire to manipulate stocks. The absurd charge failed to hurt Jones. Sharon withdrew from the race, and the state legislature elected Jones as senator.At the same time, Sharon's monopoly was failing. Jones and an investor had seized control of the Crown Point Mine in 1871. John Mackay, James Fair, and two other Irish immigrants obtained neglected mines and discovered the famed Big Bonanza in 1873. This Bonanza Crowd, as it was known, broke the Bank of California's control. Bank founder William Ralston swam into the Pacific and drowned, but Sharon survived.In 1874, William Stewart decided to retire from the U. S. Senate. Sharon began campaigning again. He purchased one of Virginia City's newspapers, the Territorial Enterprise, and replaced editor Joseph Goodman, who had attacked him during the 1872 election. At once, Enterprise editorials praised Sharon. Although Adolph Sutro ran with determination, Sharon outspent him and won election.Sharon was an extraordinarily disreputable senator. Living in San Francisco, he rarely appeared in Nevada or Washington, D.C. He presented no bills, made no speeches of record, voted in less than one percent of the roll calls, and did not participate in the critical debates about silver and the monetary system. In 1881, the Bonanza Crowd purchased Sharon's senate seat for James Fair.Sharon had married Maria Mulloy of Quebec who died in 1875. Two of their five children survived to adulthood. William Sharon, whose manipulations had earned him millions, died in 1885.

James Buchanan Duke: Father of the modern cigarette

It looks harmless enough - white, 8cm (3in) long and about the width of a child's finger - but the cigarette is vilified like no other product. Who invented it and how much responsibility does he bear for the countless deaths it has caused?US surgeon Alton Ochsner recalled that when he was a medical student in 1919 his class was summoned to observe an autopsy of a lung cancer victim. At that time, the disease was so rare it was thought unlikely the students would ever get another chance.But by the year 2000, it was estimated that 1.1 million people were dying annually from the disease, with about 85% of those cases stemming from a single cause - tobacco.James Duke: A cigar smoker who made cigarettes"The cigarette is the deadliest artefact in the history of human civilisation," says Robert Proctor of Stanford University. "It killed about 100 million people in the 20th Century."Jordan Goodman, the author of Tobacco in History, says that as a historian he is careful about pointing the finger at individuals, "but in the history of tobacco I feel much more confident saying that James Buchanan Duke - otherwise known as Buck Duke - was responsible for the 20th Century phenomenon known as the cigarette."Not only did Duke help create the modern cigarette, he also pioneered the marketing and distribution systems that have led to its success on every continent.In 1880, at the age of 24, Duke entered what was then a niche within the tobacco business - ready-rolled cigarettes. A small team in Durham, North Carolina, hand-rolled the Duke of Durham cigarettes, twisting the ends to seal them.Two years later Duke saw an opportunity. He began working with a young mechanic called James Bonsack, who said he could mechanise cigarette manufacturing. Duke was convinced that people would want to smoke these neatly-rolled, perfectly symmetrical machine-made cigarettes.Bonsack's machine revolutionised the cigarette industry."It cranked out what was essentially a cigarette of infinite length, cut into the appropriate lengths by whirling shears," says Robert Proctor. The open ends meant it had to be "juiced-up with chemical additives". They added glycerine, sugar and molasses, and chemicals to prevent it from drying out.But keeping cigarettes moist was not the only challenge that Bonsack's contraption presented to Duke. While his factory girls typically rolled about 200 cigarettes in a shift, the new machine produced 120,000 cigarettes a day, about a fifth of US consumption at the time."The problem was he produced more cigarettes than he could sell," says Goodman. "He had to work out how to capture this market."The answer was to be found in advertising and marketing. Duke sponsored races, gave his cigarettes out for free at beauty contests and placed ads in the new "glossies" - the first magazines. He also recognised that the inclusion of collectable cigarette cards was as important as getting the product right. In 1889 alone, he spent $800,000 on marketing (about $25m in today's money).Bonsack retained the patent to his machine, but as thanks for Duke's support in developing it, he offered him a 30% discount on the lease.This competitive advantage - coupled with vigorous promotion - was key to Duke's early success. As he had suspected, people liked mechanised cigarettes. They were modern-looking and more hygienic - one campaign emphasised this point over cigars, which were manufactured using human hands and saliva.But although cigarette smoking in the US quadrupled in the 15 years to 1900, it remained a niche market, with most tobacco being chewed or smoked through pipes and cigars.Duke - a cigar smoker himself - saw the potential for cigarettes to be used in places closed to cigars and pipes, such as drawing rooms and restaurants. The ease with which they could be lit and - unlike pipes - remain lit, also suited them to coffee breaks in modern city life."The cigarette was really used in a different way," says Proctor. "And it was milder - and this is one of the great ironies, that cigarettes were widely thought to be safer than cigars, because they are just 'little cigars', right?"We now know that cigarettes are far more addictive than cigars. The fact that the smoke is inhaled - which it is not traditional for cigars - also makes them more dangerous. But a correlation with lung cancer was not made until the 1930s and the causal link was not established until 1957 in the UK and 1964 in the US.Cigarettes were in fact promoted as beneficial for health. They were listed in pharmaceutical encyclopaedias until 1906 and prescribed by doctors for coughs, colds and tuberculosis (a disease which the World Health Organization now links with tobacco).There was an anti-cigarette movement in the early 1900s, but it was more concerned with morality than health. A rise in smoking among women and children fed into a wider concern about the moral decline of society. Cigarettes were prohibited in 16 different US states between 1890 and 1927.Duke's gaze shifted overseas. In 1902 he formed British American Tobacco with his transatlantic rival, Imperial Tobacco. The packaging and marketing would be tweaked for different consumers but the cigarettes would remain largely the same. More than a decade before the creation of the Model T Ford, Duke had a universal product."To him every cigarette was the same," says Goodman. "All of the globalisation that we are now familiar with through McDonald's and Starbucks - all of that was preceded by Duke and the cigarette."The global reach of cigarettes is still extending today. Although smoking in wealthy parts of the world is in decline, cigarette demand in developing countries is increasing by 3.4% a year, leading to an overall growth in cigarette consumption.The WHO warns that unless preventative measures are taken, 100 million people will die of tobacco-related diseases over the next 30 years - more than from Aids, tuberculosis, car accidents and suicide combined.But can we blame Buck Duke for any of that? After all, no-one is forced to take up smoking, even if they find it difficult to give up once they have started.In a recent essay for the journal Tobacco Control, Robert Proctor argues that many people in the tobacco industry all share some responsibility. "We have to realise that adverts can be carcinogens, along with convenience stores and pharmacies that sell cigarettes. The executives who work for cigarette companies cause cancer, as do the artists who design cigarette packs and the PR and advertising firms that manage such accounts," he says.Successful lawsuits that have been brought against "big tobacco" have tended to argue that tobacco companies knew about the detrimental effects of their products, but did nothing about it. But Buck Duke, who died in 1925, did not."I wouldn't want to blame him for cigarette consumption," says his biographer Bob Durden, who is keen to point out Duke's positive character traits. "He was very hard-working. He loved his work."Those who still find something unsavoury about Duke may wish to consider his good deeds. He gave more than $100m to Trinity College in Durham, North Carolina, which was renamed Duke University in 1924 (in honour of James Buchanan Duke and his father, Washington Duke, another benefactor).But if it weren't for Buck Duke, would Americans still be chewing tobacco today? Would modern sports bars have spittoons by the door?Goodman believes that the world was inevitably heading towards mechanised cigarette production. Bonsack's machine wasn't the only prototype, and if Duke hadn't seized the opportunity another businessman would have."He was both a hero and a villain I suppose. Buck Duke is a hero in terms of his understanding of the market, his understanding of human psychology, his understanding of pricing, his understanding of advertising. He's not villainous in that sense," says Goodman.Yet however great Duke's achievements as an architect of mass-production and globalisation, his legend will continue to be eclipsed by his controversial creation."He made the world smoke cigarettes," says Goodman. "And it's the cigarette which has been the problem of the 20th Century."

Jay Gould

Birth: May 27, 1836Death: Dec. 2, 189219th Century American financier and railroad magnate. He was born into poverty on May 27, 1836 in Roxbury, New York. Too frail for farming, Gould’s early career in land surveying and commodity speculation got him interested in railroad stocks, which were the high-growth glamour issues of the day. In 1859 he moved to New York City, where he became a broker in railway stocks. By marriage to the daughter of a prominent businessman in 1863, he got himself appointed manager of the near-bankrupt Rensselaer & Saratoga railway. After returning that railroad to profitability, he bought up and reorganized the Rutland & Washington railway in the same way, from which he ultimately realized a large profit. In 1868, he partnered with James Fisk to successfully fight Cornelius Vanderbilt for control of the Erie Railroad. Gould and Fisk plundered the railroad’s assets and issued $5 million in fraudulent stock from 1868 to 1870, leading to litigation that forced Gould out in March 1872 and to pay $7.5 million restitution. Fisk only escaped the court’s wrath by dying in January 1872. After the Erie debacle, Gould gained control of the Union Pacific Railroad, which led to the formation of the Gould System of four Western railroads with 10,000 miles of track, about one-ninth of the railway mileage of the United States at that time. Gould withdrew from the UP in 1883 after realizing a large profit on his stock. Gould also obtained a controlling interest in Western Union and led it to victory in its battle for control of the telegraph industry. He died of tuberculois on December 2, 1892, when his fortune was estimated at $72 million, all of which he left to his own family. 

John D. Rockefeller

John Davison Rockefeller  was born July 8, 1839 on a farm in Richmond, New York.  He was the second child of six born to William Avery and Eliza Davison Rockefeller.  The family lived modestly, John’s father being a “pitch man” charging up to $25.00 for treatments for cancers.  His father traveled and was gone for months at time and John’s upbringing fell mainly on his mother, who was very religious and disciplined.  She taught her children to work, to save and to give to charities.  After moving to Moravia and later to Owego, New York, the family moved to Ohio in 1853.  They bought a house near Cleveland, in Strongsville, Ohio and John attended Central High School in Cleveland.  John left high school in 1855 and took a six-month business course at Folsom Mercantile College.  He completed the course in three months and began searching for a job as a bookkeeper or clerk in Cleveland.  In 1855, business in Cleveland was adverse and John had trouble finding a job.  After six weeks, Hewitt & Tuttle, a small company of produce shippers and commission merchants employed him as an assistant bookkeeper.  Rockefeller worked hard and impressed his employers, arranging complicated transportation deals moving freight by railroad, canal and lake boats.  He began to trade for his own account and his combination of caution; precision and resolve brought him to the attention of the Cleveland business community. In 1859, several months before his 20th birthday, Rockefeller entered into business for himself, forming a partnership with a neighbor, Maurice Clark.  Each man put up $2,000, John had $1,000 he had saved and he borrowed the other $1,000 from his father.  Due to Rockefeller’s natural business abilities, Clark & Rockefeller earned a small profit their first year in business and the company became very successful.  Their business expanded rapidly during the Civil War and the company continued earning a profit for the two partners.  In 1863, Rockefeller and Clark entered the oil business as refiners.  Cleveland had become a major refining center for the booming new oil industry.  Together with a new partner, Samuel Andrews who had experience in oil refining, and two of Maurice Clark’s brothers, they built Andrews, Clark & Co.  The five partners disagreed about financing the company’s expansion and in 1865, Rockefeller bought the interest of the Clarks for $72,500 and with Andrews, formed Rockefeller & Andrews.  Rockefeller, at the age of 24, leveraged the business and expanded intensely.  He plowed all his profits back into the business and took decisive steps to strengthen his company.  In 1866, John brought his brother William into the business to manage the New York City office and handle the export business. In 1870 he organized The Standard Oil Company with his brother William, Samuel Andrews, Henry M. Flagler, Stephen V. Harkness and O. B. Jennings.  Rockefeller felt the state of the oil business was in disarray.  Entry costs were low and the market was glutted with oil and a resulting high level of waste.  He felt the inefficiency of the smaller firms, in their attempts to survive, drove the prices down below the production costs and hurt the larger more efficient firms like his own.  His solution was one large company, vertically integrated, controlling the refining and storage of oil, and the manufacturing of ancillary products such as paint and glue.   By 1872, Standard Oil had purchased and controlled nearly all the refining firms in Cleveland.  Standard Oil prospered and all its properties were merged in 1882 into the Standard Oil Trust, which was effectively one giant company.  In 1896, Rockefeller decided to give up leadership of the day-to-day business of Standard Oil and focused his efforts on philanthropy.  Ever since he was a boy following his mother’s teachings, he had contributed to his church and other charities, and from the mid 1890’s until his death in 1937, Rockefeller’s activities were all philanthropic.  Rockefeller hired the Reverend Frederick T. Gates who had worked with the American Baptist Education Society and the University of Chicago to help him manage his philanthropy.  In 1897, his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. assisted Gates and with their advice, Rockefeller established a series of institutions that are important in the history of American philanthropy, science, medicine and public health that continues today. Rockefeller died on May 23, 1937 at the age of 97.  He is buried in Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland.

The Seligman Family: In The Civil War And After

Jewish financial contributions to the Civil War were overshadowed by the more dramatic and significant battles. Yet, the Seligman family's role in obtaining financial aid for the North is compared to the victories of the Union forces at Gettysburg and the contributions of Haym Salomon to the American Revolution by the Dictionary of National Biography.When the Civil War began, the South had no problems in getting European credit while the North had trouble. Union bonds could not be sold abroad and the North was hurting financially.The Seligman brothers, through their international banking firm, J.&W. Seligman and Company, were able to break this "no credit" wall when their Frankfurt, Germany, branch sold over $200 million worth of bonds. This was the opening that enabled the North to be financially sound in the continuation of the Civil War. As a result of being able to sell the United States bonds in Frankfurt, the government appointed all of their European branches as their fiscal agents in selling U.S. bonds.At this time, the North owed the Seligman family over a million dollars for clothing purchased from them in their dry goods business.Fanny and David Seligman had eight sons and three daughters and their eldest son, Joseph, immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1837. Joseph worked hard and he sent for his seven brothers as he accumulated enough fare. Jesse and Henry opened up a dry goods store in Watertown, New York, in 1848.It was here that Jesse became friendly with a young lieutenant named Ulysses S. Grant, who was stationed there, and who was to become a great general in the Civil War. Jesse Seligman recalls in his writings that he was learning the English language and smoking penny cigars when he and Grant were having long conversations.In 1850, Jesse and Leopold Seligman went to San Francisco with merchandise and established a lucrative business taking care of the needs of those involved in the gold rush. They returned to New York, where they had a large import and clothing firm. It was this firm that sold merchandise to the North during the Civil War and gave them over a million dollars of credit.Jesse Seligman was a vice-president of the Union League Club of New York, but he resigned in 1893 when his son was blackballed be cause of his religion. He was for over 20 years the president of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum of New York and he was selected by Baron de Hirsch in 1891 as an original member of the board of trustees of the Baron de Hirsch Fund.Jesse Seligman enjoyed the confidence and esteem of President Grant and some of his successors. Joseph Seligman was active in finance and he submitted a plan to the government on how to fund their operations. His plan was selected and he joined with the House of Rothschild in this undertaking.Joseph Seligman was offered the position of Secretary of the Treasury by President Grant, but he refused the prestigious offer. He was very active in charity and Jewish affairs. Prior to his death in 1880, he was considered to be one of the leading Jews in the country.

JOHN D. SPRECKELS

John D. Spreckels, son of Claus and Anna D. Spreckels, has for a number of years co-operated with his famous father in the various enterprises with which the Spreckels name is identified, and his individual interests, especially those concerned with the Pacific steamship traffic, show that he has inherited all the financial and organizing ability of his father and is fully capable of assuming the responsibilities and carrying out the business policies which the senior Spreckels inaugurated.Mr. J. D. Spreckels was born in Charleston, South Carolina, August 16, 1853. He was educated in Oakland College, California, and in the Polytechnic Institute of Hanover, Germany. On leaving school he at once entered business with his father, but in addition to the business interests which have been noted in the above sketch of his father, he has developed enterprises of his own. In 1880 he organized the J. D. Spreckels and Brothers, a company with two millions dollars capital, whose purpose was to establish a trade line between the United States and the Hawaiian Islands. They began with one sailing vessel, the Rosario; now they control two large fleets of sail and steam ships. This firm also engaged extensively in sugar refining, and became agents for leading houses. Much of the credit for the development of the trade and the promotion of the commercial interests between the United States and Hawaii is due to this firm.In 1881 Mr. Spreckels founded the Oceanic Steamship Company, which at first chartered vessels, but now owns and operates a first-class line of mail and passenger steamers between San Francisco and Hawaii. In 1885 this company's operations were extended by the Pacific Mail Company's going out of the Australian trade, and now this company is the only one flying the American flag on a regular line between San Francisco, Honolulu and Australia, and New Zealand. Mr. Spreckels has been president of the company from the first, and in this connection has done much for the commercial interests of San Francisco.In 1887 the Spreckels Brothers Commercial Company established in San Diego the largest coal depots, warehouses and wharves anywhere along the coast, the coal capacity being fifteen thousand tons. Mr. Spreckels holds much of the stock in the Coronado Beach and Hotel Company, which has one of the finest properties of the kind in the world. He is the owner of the street railway and ferry system of San Diego, and is connected with many other enterprises. He is president and active manager of the Olympia Salt Water Company, which has placed a system of water mains under the city, conveying salt water from the pumping station on the beach to the Lurline Baths in the heart of the city; in the building numerous small baths are maintained and an immense swimming tank is kept filled with salt water.He is president of the Beaver Hill Coal Company, supplying coal to San Francisco from the mines in Oregon; was one of the founders and builders and now a director of the San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railroad, which is one of the most important enterprises undertaken for the local development of California; is manager of the extensive real estate holdings of the Spreckels family in San Francisco, comprising some of the finest office and business buildings in the United States; is owner and publisher of the San Francisco Call, one of the most successful and profitable newspaper properties in the west; is president of the Western Sugar Refining Company; president of the Western Beet Sugar Company; president of the Pajaro Valley Railroad Company and the Coronado Beach Company; is also interested in the Hutchinson Sugar Plantations Company and the Hakalan Plantation Company of Hawaii; and many other concerns.Mr. Spreckels is an earnest Republican, and for a number of years has been one of the most influential in the councils of the party in this state. He has been chairman of the state central committee, and in 1896 was delegate at large to the national convention and California member to the national committee. He has often been mentioned for the office of governor or United States senator, but has never sought such distinction, and his desires all tend toward private life and caring for his business interests.Mr. Spreckels married, in 1877, Miss Lillie Sieben, of Hoboken, New Jersey. They have four children: Grace, Lillie, John D., Jr., and Claus.

Charles Tyson Yerkes (1837-1905)

One of the men to have the most profound effect upon the early development of the Chicago "L" was businessman, financier, and traction magnate Charles Tyson Yerkes. At one point, Yerkes owned more than half of the private "L" companies (as well as 2/3 of the street railway system) and was responsible for much of the development of the system that can still be seen today. This colorful character was a shrewd businessman who was hailed by his allies and reviled by his critics.Charles Tyson Yerkes, Jr. was born on June 25, 1837 to Quaker parents in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Yerkes family came from Wales to America in 1682 and became Quakers by adoption on reaching the territory of William Penn. According to the custom, young Charles became a student at a Quaker school and finished his education at the Central High School of Philadelphia. Yerkes's formal education ended after high school when he got his first full-time job as a clerk in a grain commission broker's office at age 17. His employers were so pleased with his work that they presented the young Yerkes with $50 at the end of his first year, although the custom was to give no salary to apprentices.At 22, he became a broker and underwriter of municipal securities. That year, he opened his own brokerage firm and joined the stock exchange. In 1862, he became involved in banking in Philadelphia, where he also began his interest in traction and street railways, and opened his own banking house at 20 South Third Street. He specialized in the sale of government, state, and city bonds and he soon was counted among the solid men of the City of Brotherly Love. When the national bond market collapsed after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Yerkes found himself unable to make due on his monthly payment to the City of Philadelphia's account with him. He lost his fortune and was ruined. The City of Philadelphia sent him to jail (officially for embezzlement of $400,000 of the city's money, unofficially for giving preference in his payments to someone other than the city), but he served only seven months of a thirty-three month term. While in prison for his crime, Yerkes confidently told a reporter, "I have made up my mind to keep my mental strength unimpaired, and think my chances for regaining my former position, financially, are as good as they ever were." He was pardoned by the governor at the request of some prominent Philadelphians. He soon returned to banking and quickly remade his fortune.In 1873 Mr. Yerkes set resolutely at work to recoup his shattered fortune, and as early as 1875 became interested in the Continental Passenger Railway Company and saw the stock rise from $15 to $100 a share. In the year 1880 Mr. Yerkes paid his first visit to Chicago, and while there became interested in the Northwest Land Company, with headquarters in Fargo, Dakota. This may have had a connection with a reported stint of Yerkes posing as a colonel in the Dakota Territory for a period in 1880 or 1881.In 1881, he divorced, remarried and relocated to Chicago. He quickly became involved in banking, financing, and traction again. When Yerkes arrived in Chicago, it was with the sole intention of opening a bank. As was popular with the powerful businessmen of the day, Yerkes assembled syndicates, an assembly of minimum risk companies with similar interests, for investors. These acquisitions were often highly leveraged and usually collapsed.After Yerkes came to Chicago, it was not long before the street railways caught his eye in his search for profit-making ventures. The low price of the North Chicago City Railway's stock and its room for expansion and modernization drew Yerkes's eye and he and his business partners, Peter A. B. Widener and William C. Elkins, chose it as their first acquisition in 1886. Together, the men acquired a bare majority of stock, 2,505 shares at $600 each for a total investment of $1,503,000, and created a holding company on March 18th called the North Chicago Street Railroad Company. This holding company issued $1,500,000 in bonds, the proceeds of which paid for the original stock purchase. The North Chicago City Railway then leased all of its property to the North Chicago Street Railroad Company for the period of 999 years. Thus, the Yerkes syndicate had acquired a street railway that produced approximately $250,000 per year in dividends on about $1.2 million in revenues without investing a dime himself. The tactic worked so well, Yerkes would repeat it one year later on the West Side.A shrewd, sometimes ruthless businessman, Yerkes used every device at his disposal to ward off competitors and maintain a monopoly in his respective sections of the city. Like many other businessmen of the period, he routinely resorted to bribery to obtain franchises from the city council. When bribery didn't work, he sometimes employed "professional vamps" to seduce, then blackmail, lawmakers. If this failed, he'd usually simply buy out his competitor and either dismantle them or integrate them into his syndicate. Interestingly, Yerkes was often not the majority stockholder in his companies. He often distributed stock amongst his business associates, his wife, and even his clerical staff so that he could maintain a low profile when taking over companies. But the politicians, press, and public knew who was really in charge.Thus began a bitter distrust and dislike between Yerkes and the City of Chicago. Mayor Carter Harrison wrote of Yerkes, "Trained in the public utility school he saw a roseate future ahead for the man who would apply eastern methods of official corruption to the crude halfway measures so far practiced by the novices in Chicago's best financial circles." The feeling was mutual. Popular lore says that after Harrison's newspaper, the Times, published an unflattering article about Yerkes's street railways, the businessman strode unannounced into Harrison's office and said, "Carter, I always knew you were a scoundrel. Good day, sir, " and left before Harrison could utter a word.Two "L" companies threatened Yerkes's transportation monopoly on the West Side of the city: the Metropolitan West Side Elevated and the Lake Street Elevated Railroads. By 1894, when the Met was under construction, Yerkes decided action was required and moved to take over the financially crippled Lake Street Elevated. He theorized that with the Chicago West Division Railway Company and the Lake Street Elevated Railway Company under his control, he could successfully minimize the negative effects of the Met.Keeping his identity a secret, Yerkes reached an agreement on July 3, 1894 with Frank L. Underwood on behalf of Underwood, Willard R. Green, Michael Cassius McDonald, and the Lake Street's other major stockholders for a majority interest in the Lake Street "L". Yerkes received 50,000 shares of company stock at $18 a share. Two days later, Yerkes replaced the company's officers with his own men, including outing President John A. Roche with his own man, Delancey H. Louderback, who was also active in the management of some of Yerkes's street railways. Yerkes immediately infused some badly needed capital into the cash-poor company.It was about this time that Yerkes's public image began a rapid decline. Yerkes's extravagant lifestyle did little to stifle his image as a robber baron as well. He furnished his $1.5 million mansion on New York City's Fifth Avenue with a marble staircase, a conservatory complete with flitting birds, and a gallery full of European art treasures, and later built a second mansion a few blocks away for his favorite mistress.A young astronomer gave Yerkes a chance to better his image. Twenty-four-year-old George Ellery Hale proposed an observatory adequately equipped to study the sun. When Hale accepted a professorship at the University of Chicago in 1892, it was with one costly condition: He required the University to build a new observatory costing not less than $250,000.On October 4, 1892, U of C President Harper and Professor Hale visited Yerkes in his office at 444 North Clark Street. Harper and Hale shrewdly appealed to Yerkes' considerable ego in order to obtain his financial support for their project. This would not be just any telescope, the scholars argued, it would be the world's largest telescope. For a man who always desired the biggest and best of everything, this proposal naturally held allure. But when Yerkes learned the full cost of the project, Yerkes hesitated. While certainly willing to finance a telescope, he had never planned on bankrolling a complete observatory building. Unfortunately for the tycoon, Hale leaked to the press a greatly exaggerated account of Yerkes' generosity, and on October 12 news stories trumpeted the "princely donation."The Daily Inter Ocean outdid the other newspapers in its praise of Yerkes and Sidney Kent, who funded a chemistry lab for the University. "What Lorenzo the Magnificent did for art in Florence, Kent and Yerkes, each in his own way, are doing for science in Chicago," the Inter Ocean extolled.The Chicago Times, owned by ex-Mayor Carter Harrison, Sr., refused to add to the cheers. "The astronomical beneficence of Mr. Yerkes does not excuse his street railway's shortcomings any more than the educational liberality of Mr. Rockefeller justifies the methods of the Standard Oil Company. It begins to look as if President Harper's success as a money raiser was due to his having shrewdly represented the Chicago university to divers men of wealth as a sort of conscience fund."By 1894, building plans were complete and the telescope's mounting already assembled, yet Yerkes was refusing to spend any more money on the project. On October 21, 1897, the Yerkes Observatory was officially dedicated. The observatory's namesake delivered the address presenting the observatory to the University of Chicago. His speech received a thunderous ovation.About the same time, Yerkes was contemplating a solution to a problem facing all three of Chicago's elevated companies: the lack of a true downtown terminal. The solution was a structure that today is one of Chicago's most renowned structures and one of the most defining elements of its central business district: the Loop.The Cities and Villages Act of 1872 required consent signatures from the majority of property owners along each mile of a street where an elevated railroad planned to build. Since many downtown streets were already lined with upscale stores, the "L" companies found the fear of the looming shadows and lowered property values the hulking elevated structure might bring hard to overcome. It took the political power of Charles Tyson Yerkes to overcome these obstacles and begin construction.Though the exact alignment of the Loop was debated and changed several times, the use of Lake Street as the north leg was never seriously questioned. This suited the Yerkes's Lake Street Elevated just fine, making their connection to the Loop all the more simple. By mid-1894, all the necessary frontage consent signatures along Lake Street to Wabash Avenue had been secured. On December 28, 1894, LeGrand W, Pierce, president of the Yerkes-backed Union Elevated Railroad (which Yerkes had chartered in November of 1894), and Lake Street Elevated president Delancey H. Louderback reached an agreement. The Union Elevated funded the cost of five of the seven block north leg from Market to Wabash, but ownership would stay with the Lake Street to pacify some property owners who still feared the presence of a Union Loop.By late summer 1895, the Lake Street extension was constructed to Wabash Avenue with stations at Fifth Avenue (later called Wells Street), Clark Street, and State Street. The Lake Street Elevated began service over this extension September 22, 1895. A franchise was finally granted for the east leg of the Loop along Wabash on October 14, 1895. Yerkes often used a great deal of political and corporate maneuvering to gain his franchises and one technique often employed was to obtain the franchise in the name of another company. The Wabash leg of the Loop is unique in that it was the only section whose franchise was awarded in the name of the Union Elevated Railroad Company itself. The structure between Adams and Lake was placed in service November 8, 1896.Permission for the west leg was perhaps one of the easiest to obtain. Although utilizing Market Street and extending the Market stub track of the Lake Street Elevated was considered, Yerkes instead decided to "kill two bird with one stone." He used a similar tactic here as he had for the north leg: he obtained the franchise in the name of his planned, but as-yet-unbuilt Northwestern Elevated Railroad. Frontage signatures were obtained in the name of the Northwestern from Michigan (now Hubbard) Street to Harrison Street. On June 24, 1895, the city council granted the Northwestern a 50-year franchise, after which the company reassigned the rights south of Lake Street to the Union Elevated. Construction commenced August 31, 1895.By the end of 1895, the only section of the Union Loop without a franchise was its southern leg. First considered was Harrison Street, but in late October, the Metropolitan West Side Elevated declared that this alignment was unacceptable, as it would subject its riders to a lengthy delay and detour. Yerkes abandoned his Harrison Street plans and changed the alignment to Van Buren Street, but this presented a new problem: Levi Z. Leiter, owner of much Loop property along Van Buren, strenuously objected. Thus began a bitter battle of words between Yerkes and Leiter in the newspapers and an apparent stalemate between the powerful businessman and the incensed property owner.Uninterested in compromise, Yerkes instead employed a tactic he'd used twice before in the Loop: obtaining the franchise in the name of another company. But instead of using an existing "L" company as before, he simply created a new one, the Union Consolidated Elevated Railroad. Incorporated in March 1896, its purpose was not only to build the gap between Wabash and Wells, but also the connection to the Metropolitan West Side Elevated. Unable to sway the opinion of Leiter and the fellow property owners he'd already convinced to consent to the "L"s construction, Yerkes employed perhaps one of his most crafty and duplicitous schemes. He announced that he'd build the Van Buren leg from Wabash to Halsted Street, a distance of one mile. The western half of this included mostly warehouses and industry who were at best excited and at least indifferent to the presence of the elevated. Their consent signatures coupled with those already obtained east of Market Street were all Yerkes needed to proceed. Of course, Yerkes never intended to actually build the structure west of Market. Construction east of Wells began in late 1896.Although the Van Buren leg was built and done with, there were a lot of bad feelings about Yerkes's roundabout methods of obtaining the franchise. After the Loop began operations, the city demanded forfeit from Yerkes over the alleged non-fulfillment of his franchise. At the ceremony marking the official opening of the Northwestern Elevated, Yerkes responded, "Even the City of Chicago has not the right to rob people, and the public does not want to see the money with which the city is run obtained by dishonest methods." Yerkes's relationship with the city was deteriorating fast.The Loop as a whole was activated October 3, 1897, first served by the Lake Street Elevated. The Metropolitan followed in October 11, with the South Side trailing on October 18.The last of the major "L" companies to be created was the Northwestern Elevated. Incorporated on October 25, 1893 by Edward Russell, Walter Anthony, Harold Sturges, and respected transportation consultant Bion Arnold, not among the incorporators was its chief financial backer: Yerkes. The Northwestern was actually Yerkes's first foray into the world of Chicago elevateds, incorporated more than eight months before he gained control of the Lake Street Elevated. His motivations for building the line were typically business-minded: to protect his North Side street railway system and his transportation monopoly in that section of the city.The Northwestern's charter allowed the line to extend from downtown to the Lake-Cook County border - a distance of 18.5 miles - but in all likelihood Yerkes had no intention of building beyond the Chicago city limits. In January 1894, the city granted the Northwestern a 50-year franchise to built from downtown to Wilson Avenue (later extended to Howard Street), but it included some very stiff financial penalties if the line was not completed to Wilson within three years (and to Howard within ten). In early 1894, the company surveyed its route and construction commenced in January 1896. The Yerkes-back Columbia Construction Company was confident that the line would be completed within a year. How wrong they were.Yerkes and his company met with a series of setbacks. The initial construction timetable had been overly optimistic and the company successfully lobbied for an extension until December 31, 1897. No sooner was this secured than a national economic depression caused construction to halt when Yerkes could not find buyers for nearly $1 million worth of Columbia stock. Always the cunning businessman, Yerkes came up with a solution: he offered stock purchasers a 40% bonus in Union Elevated Railroad stock. But by late November 1897, although the structure reached from Dayton to Buena, work was again halted due to financial troubles and there was no hope in meeting the new deadline. The alderman granted another extension, this time until January 1, 1899.But the financial outlook was still bleak. Columbia's stockholders were ready to quit, but Yerkes and the Northwestern decided to issue $4 million of its own bonds and seek a loan to complete the project. Work crews were again back at work, but the deadline was again impossible to meet. Hat in hand, the Northwestern asked for yet another extension. The alderman agreed, this time pushing the date to December 31, 1899.As the deadline drew nearer, extra crews were added to finish the work. By Christmas Day 1899, the entire structure was complete from downtown to Montrose, but only one track and three stations were ready for operation. On the evening of December 29th, crews built a ramps from the elevated at Montrose to the ground at Wilson and erected a small temporary station to meet the franchise requirements. The next day, the ceremonial first train was operated from Wrightwood station to the Loop and back. After this, the company decided to operate one round trip a day to keep their franchise until construction was complete.The city's public works commissioner, L.H. McGann, was unamused and declared the line unsafe (portions of the structure lacked the specified number of rivets) and incomplete and ordered operations suspended immediately. Yerkes had other ideas. He ordered the trains to operate anyway and the next day at Wrightwood station, four policemen arrested the train's motorman. Luckily, company officer Frank Hedley was aboard and he took the controls, taking the train to the Loop. Upon reaching Tower 18, he found 50 policemen lined up across the tracks, blocking the entrance to the Loop. But instead of stopping, Hedley sped up as the policemen scattered to avoid the train. The lawmen laid timbers across the Northwestern's access to the Loop and upon completing the circuit, Hedley was forced to bring his train into the Lake Street Elevated's Market Street Terminal. On January 3, 1900, the alderman granted another extension until May 31, 1900, but made it clear that there would be no more time extensions.On May 31, 1900, the Northwestern Elevated began operations, and its chief visionary was present to see his project come to fruition. But he would not remain in Chicago for long.Yerkes, in his own words, liked to "buy up old junk, fix it up a little, and unload it upon other fellows." Although this might be somewhat of an exaggeration - his railways were usually better off after he'd managed them than before - but certainly his robber baron philosophies had not earned him many allies in the city government or in the press. In 1899, Yerkes had attempted to secure a no-cost extension to one of his street railway lines for a period of one hundred years. Yerkes was accused of handing out over a million dollars in bribes to secure the passage of his franchise and during the City Council meeting a mob surrounded City Hall, demanding that Yerkes be repudiated. If Yerkes did bribe the aldermen, it was to no avail; the proposal was voted down. Politically and socially ostracized for his "rapacity," Yerkes left Chicago in 1900.A view of Charles Tyson Yerkes' tomb in Green-Wood Cemetery Brooklyn, New York. For a larger view, click here. (Photo courtesy ofMuseum Planet)He left for New York City, selling the bulk of his transit holdings and invested in the development and electrification of the London tubes (subways). He headed the syndicate that built the Metropolitan subway, (no connection to the Met "L"), and helped develop and extend the Bakerloo, Northern and Picadilly Lines.His main philanthropy was the observatory given to the University of Chicago in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He also donated an electric fountain to Lincoln Park, at a cost of $100,000. Although there have been few biographies on the life of Charles Yerkes, his life is perhaps best immortalized in works of fiction: Theodore Dreiser's "Cowperwood trilogy" - The Financier (1912), The Titan (1914), and The Stoic (1947) - was based on the life of Yerkes.His reputation was at least somewhat rehabilitated near the end of his life, such that of Yerkes, his most ardent detractor, Mayor Carter Harrison, Jr., said,"He was really a gallant though perverted soul that looked danger in the face unflinchingly. He was the stuff great war heroes are made of; with the right moral fiber he would have been a truly superb character."Charles Tyson Yerkes died in New York City on December 29, 1905, at the age of 68. His estate was valued at $4 million. His will left $100,000 to the observatory in Willams Bay, provided that it was officially designated the Yerkes Observatory. It seems that Yerkes's keen business sense was not lost on his spouse. His widow, Mary Adelaide, who was willed 1/3 of his estate, disputed a decision by the executor of his will to sell $4.5 million in Chicago City Railways bonds discounted to 30 cents on the dollar. The case dragged on until her death in 1911.