Harriman, American Railroad Executive
Edward Henry Harriman (February 20, 1848 - September 9, 1909) was an American railroad executive. In 1881, Harriman acquired the small, broken-down Lake Ontario Southern Railroad. He renamed it the Sodus Bay & Southern, reorganized it, and sold it to the Pennsylvania Railroad at a considerable profit. This was the start of his career as a rebuilder of bankrupt railroads. Harriman was nearly fifty years old when in 1897 he became a director of the Union Pacific Railroad. By May 1898 he was chairman of the executive committee, and from that time until his death his word was law on the Union Pacific system. In 1903 he assumed the office of president of the company. From 1901 to 1909, Harriman was also the President of the Southern Pacific Railroad. At the time of his death Harriman controlled the Union Pacific, the Southern Pacific, the Saint Joseph and Grand Island, the Illinois Central, the Central of Georgia, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and the Wells Fargo Express Company. Estimates of his estate ranged from $70 million to $100 million. In 1899, Harriman sponsored a scientific expedition to catalog the flora and fauna of the Alaska coastline, which he himself accompanied. He died in 1909 at the age of 61. Naturalist John Muir, who had joined him on the 1899 Alaska Expedition, wrote in his eulogy of Harriman, "In almost every way, he was a man to admire." No photographer credited, undated.
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