By the time of his death in 1916, James J. Hill was worth more than $53 million[ (almost $2.5 billion (2007) dollars). And it began with Hills hunger to build a rail line across northern Minnesota in the 1890s, to haul grain more directly from the Red River Valley to Lake Superior. By the time of his death in 1916, James J. Hill was worth more than $53 million (equal to more than $1,319,813,456 today). As with his business dealings, Hill supervised the construction and design himself, hiring and firing several architects in the process. But it has been a source of wealth for the Hill family and for the railroads investors for more than a century. Jameson discovered the pass 1889 and it shortened the Great Northern's route by almost one hundred miles. His father was a hired farmer, who received employment occasionally at Ontario in Canada. His first job in St. Paul was with a steamboat company, where he worked as a bookkeeper. "A Gilded Age Businessman in Politics: James J. Hill, the Northwest, and the American Presidency, 1884-1912,", This page was last edited on 15 December 2022, at 06:08. He tactfully entered the coal business during the time of the Civil War in 1867, where he supplied coal instead of wood, which was undergoing heavy shortage. Map | Directions and Parking. The iron empire: James J. Hills Great Northern, Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window), Submit to Stumbleupon (Opens in new window), The iron empire: James J. 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He also contributed to the establishment of Marquette University School of Medicine. [11] This "Dakota Boom" peaked in 1882 as 42,000 immigrants, largely from northern Europe, poured into the Red River Valley running through the region. Eramosa Township, Upper Canada, British North America, Saint Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota, United States, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_J._Hill&oldid=707800972, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/hill_james_jerome_14E.html, Persons of National Historic Significance. When there was not enough industry in the areas Hill was building, Hill brought the industry in, often by buying out a company and placing plants along his railroad lines. When his estate was divided his widow received over 16 million, and each of his children received almost 4 million; 1.5 million was paid in income and inheritance taxes.[19]. After his fathers death, his mother found it difficult to provide for her children by the means of only running a small inn. Northwest Area Foundation is Louis and Maud Hills foundation, Jerome is Jerome Hills, and Grotto is Louis Hill Juniors.. The 14-story building cost $14 million to construct. To promote settlement and revenue for his rail business, Hill experimented with agriculture and worked to hybridize Russian wheat for Dakota soil and weather conditions. Still, historians agree that the Hills role on the Iron Range was definitely not a matter of just cashing royalty checks. Some mines were already operating, and Hills sons were excited by the potential. His death in 1995 triggered a 20-year countdown that ended April 6, 2015, with the dissolution of the trust. Hills son Louis persuaded him to buy it, Brunfelt said. Between 1856 and 1859 he prospered in a series of wood and coal merchandising partnerships. Today, that fortune would be worth upward of $3 billion . Over the next two decades, he worked relentlessly to push the line north to Canada and then west across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Revealing for the first time a story hidden from public view for a century, award-winning historian James A. Stolpestad and the Ramsey County Historical Society present the history of the Great Northern Iron Ore Properties mining trust formed in 1906 by James J. Hill and Louis W. Hill to acquire, manage, and lease 67,000 acres on Minnesota's 100-mile long Mesabi Range. His two sons had to talk him into being interested in it in the first place, said Eileen R. McCormack, a Hill family biographer and former curator of the Hill papers. They had ten children: He died in his home in St. Paul, Minnesota on May 29, 1916. He never really explained that the (railroads) major stockholders were the founding partners and their families so it really didnt cause them any harm financially., (But it did allow Hill in 1907 to testify, somewhat disingenuously, that he hadnt made the value of a postage stamp, directly or indirectly, out of the transaction. A truer account came in 1912, when Hill told a congressional committee that the land hed bought for $4 million would yield $750 million in iron ore.). When he was looking for the best path for one of his tracks to take, he went on horseback and scouted it personally. Though a protestant by faith he made generous donations to St. Paul Seminary. Said Brunfelt, the Iron Range historian, The Great Northern (Railway) is one of the great success stories in American history, the only transcontinental railroad built by an individual, which is astonishing when you think of it. Nearing the century mark, downtown St. Paul's James J. Hill Center to close in July. He attended the Rockwood Academy for a short while, where the head gave him free tuition. Because of vandals or curious admirers both graves were later moved to Resurrection Cemetery in St. Paul for safer keeping. ; and Pittsburgh. They frequently entertained Rachel's parents at their home and Rachel and her daughters lived at 240 Summit for a few years ca 1918-1922. The Democratic Party's continued enchantment with the populist William Jennings Bryan led Hill to support Republican presidential candidates William McKinley (1896 and 1900), Theodore Roosevelt (1904), William Howard Taft (1908 and 1912). Mr. Hill will be resting at the Mackey Funeral Home, 33 Peel Street, Lindsay on Friday from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Funeral service in the chapel on Saturday, May 31st at 10:00 a.m. Interment at Riverside Cemetery, Lindsay. Born In: Eramosa Township, Ontario, Upper Canada, Spouse/Ex-: Mary Theresa Mehegan (m. 1867), children: Charlotte Hill Slade, Clara Hill Lindley, Gertrude Hill Gavin, James N. Hill, Katherine, Louis W. Hill, Mary Hill Hill, Rachel Hill Boeckmann, Ruth Hill Beard, Walter Jerome Hill, See the events in life of James J. Hill in Chronological Order, (Canadian-American railroad executive, Businessman). In addition, he donated to numerous schools, including the Saint Paul Seminary. In 1890 the railroad became the Great Northern Railway Company, with Hill as president (1890-1907) and later chairman of the board (1907-1912). Thus, with his experience in cargo business he began bidding for other contracts and won quite a few. It was at this point that Hill became the official president of StPM&M (not that he hadn't been the man behind the curtain before), and decided to expand the rail lines. A dispute over one of the last-remaining parcels of undeveloped land in a private St. Paul suburb established by the heirs of railroad magnate James J. Hill has the local community scrambling for answers just a week before the election. Mary Hill Hill, who married Samuel Hill of Washington D.C. & Seattle. The 14-story building cost $14 million to construct. These events led him to be acclaimed as a headstrong businessman who had overcome the Panic of 1893 and stood like a pillar through Americas financial turmoil. Sep 16 1838 - Eramosa Township, Upper Canada, British North America, May 29 1916 - Saint Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota, United States, James Jerome Hill, Ann Hill (born Dunbar), Sep 16 1838? The Great Northern began large-scale shipment of ore to the steel mills of the Midwest. Although Great Northern and Northern Pacific were backed by J. P. Morgan and James J. Hill, the Union Pacific was backed not only by its president, Edward H. Harriman, but by the extremely powerful William Rockefeller and Jacob Schiff. [10], The Great Northern energetically promoted settlement along its lines in North Dakota and Montana, especially by Germans and Scandinavians from Europe. In a way, they kind of fell into the biggest, most valuable property on the Range, said Pam Brunfelt, an Iron Range historian. Born in southern Ontario on September 16, 1838, to Irish immigrant parents, young Hill suffered a bow and arrow injury at age nine and lost sight in his right eye for the rest of his life. It just sat there, in offices at the First National Bank building, and no one paid a lot of attention to it., That was true even on the Iron Range. It was his relentless hard work and business prowess that led to further railroad development in Northwest America. Thus, the knowledge he amassed in the academy was put to use in order to establish his business later in life. He fell in love with a waitress, Mary Theresa Mehegan, at Merchants Hotel, where he often dined. The Great Northern bought its lands from the federal governmentit received no land grantsand resold them to farmers at cheap prices. [18] Hill also wanted control of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad because of its Midwestern lines and access to Chicago. Brother of Mary Elizabeth Hill In addition, he donated to numerous schools, including the Saint Paul Seminary. As a result, one feature Hill integrated into the construction of the 1887 company headquarters (the Great Northern General Office Building) was barrel vaulted ceilings constructed of brick and railroad steel rails that held up a layer of sand several inches deep. He imported grains from Russia and sold this to farmers. Between 1883 and 1889, Hill built his railroads across Minnesota, into Wisconsin, and across North Dakota to Montana. His ability to ride out the depression garnered him fame and admiration. Near the end of his life, Hill played what a recent biographer, Albro Martin, called his "last and greatest role." He was the chief executive officer of a family of lines headed by the Great Northern Railway, which served a substantial area of the Upper Midwest, the northern Great Plains, and Pacific Northwest. Hillwas acknowledged for his discreet business skills but he also had a deep regard for art. It was obtained by the Minnesota Historical Society in 1978 and today is operated as a museum and gallery. Louis Jr. was just 4 years old when the trust was created. Samuel Hill was an executive at the Great Northern Railway when he married Mary Hill. Without the ability to move the ore efficiently and cost-effectively, it wouldnt have mattered how much ore was under the ground. Hill died in St. Paul on May 29, 1916. [3] By 1879 he had a local monopoly by merging with Norman Kittson. Hill had seen the devastation done to downtown Chicago by the great fire of 1871. Drawing on his experience in the development of Minnesota's Iron Range, Hill was, during 19111912, in close contact with Gaspard Farrer of Baring Brothers & Company of London regarding the formation of the Brazilian Iron Ore Company to tap that nation's rich mineral deposits. [14] Mary Hill died in 1922 and was buried next to her husband by the shore of Pleasant Lake on their North Oaks farm. The James J. Hill House in St. Paul, Minnesota is a National Historic Landmark. Not for the first time in Hill's career, competitors became partners. He had nine years of formal schooling. First, Hill turned his personal ownership of the mines over to his railroad, a move that Hills more reverential biographers cite as proof of his honor and generosity. A Canadian himself of Scotch-Irish Protestant ancestry, he brought in many men with the same background into high management. In 1929, the Great Northern Railway inaugurated a long-distance passenger train extending from Chicago to Seattle, and named it the Empire Builder in his honor. Hill noted that the secret to success was, "Work, hard work, intelligent work, and then more work.". Louis Warren Hill (May 19, 1872- April 27, 1948), was an American railroad executive. He wrote that by 1946, that single mine had produced 40 million tons of iron ore and generated $37 million in freight revenue for the railroad and $22.5 million in royalties that flowed into the trust. It is still active, and if you add the Hibbing Taconite Pit to it, it stretches for five miles now, Brunfelt said. Through this work, he learned all aspects of the freight and transportation business. He was the president and board chairman of the Great Northern Railway, which served a substantial area of the Upper Midwest, the northern Great Plains, and Pacific Northwest . James Jerome Hill was born near Guelph, Ontario on September 16, 1838. But as the decades pass, the legacy has become harder to see. ST. PAUL, May 29--James J. Hill, builder of the "Northwest Empire," died at 9:30 A.M. today at his house, 240 Summit Avenue. Born into an impoverished family, he reshaped his own destiny with sheer dedication and foresight. ", 240 Summit Ave. Born in Virginia in 1825, Hill was a career military officer and graduate of West Point who served in the Mexican-American and Seminole Wars before leading Confederate troops in a series of key. In 1907 he made his son the owner of his business, yet his grit and determination led him to work daily, until just a week before he died. Just one grandparent can lead you to many James J. Hill, nicknamed the Empire Builder, embodied the archetypal American story of success, rising from poor dock clerk to multimillionaire railroad magnate. He was the only businessman to make a hefty profit even during the time of depression. A New Mexico man is charged with killing and decapitating a 51-year-old man at a local park Sunday then kicking the severed head around, according to a report . Jim Hill Mountain near Stevens Pass in the Cascade Range is named after him, also. The net worth of the company jumped from $728,000 in 1880 to $25,000,000 in 1885. The threat of a real economic panic loomed. Hill was a member of the Jekyll Island Club (aka The Millionaires Club) on Jekyll Island, Georgia, along with J. P. Morgan and William Rockefeller. Two years later, Hill wrote a $2 million personal check half the purchase price for 25,000 acres of logged-off land, which had a small rail line to Hibbing for carrying logs. 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