Thomas C. Durant
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (April 2024) |
Thomas Clark Durant | |
---|---|
Crédit Mobilier scandal and vice president for railroads, Union Pacific Railroad | |
Spouse | Hannah Heloise Trimble |
Children | William West Durant Héloïse Durant Rose |
Thomas Clark Durant (February 6, 1820 – October 5, 1885) was an American physician, businessman, and financier. He was vice-president of the
He successfully built railroads in the Midwest, and, after an 1862 act of Congress created the Union Pacific Railroad, John A. Dix was elected president and Durant vice president of the company. Durant assumed the burden of management and money raising—and, with much money at his disposal, he helped secure the 1864 passage of a bill that increased the railroad's land grants and privileges. He organized, and at first controlled, the Crédit Mobilier of America, but in 1867 he lost control of the company to brothers Oliver and Oakes Ames. Durant continued on the directorate of the Union Pacific, however, and furiously pushed construction of the railroad until it met the Central Pacific RR on May 10, 1869. The Ames group then procured his discharge.[2]
Biography
Durant was born February 6, 1820, in Lee, Massachusetts. He studied medicine at Albany Medical College where, in 1840, he graduated cum laude and briefly served as assistant professor of surgery. After he retired from medicine, he became a director of his uncle's grain exporting company: Durant, Lathrop and Company in New York City.
While working with the prairie wheat trade, Durant realized the need for improved inland transportation, which led to his interest in the railroad industry.[3] Durant started in the railroad industry as a broker for the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad. During that time, Durant became professionally acquainted with Henry Farnam.
The two men created a new contracting company under the name of Farnam and Durant. In 1853, they received a commission to raise capital and manage construction for the newly chartered Mississippi and Missouri Railroad (M&M). The M&M Railroad acquired major land grants to build Iowa's first railroad (planned to go from Davenport on the Mississippi River to Council Bluffs on the Missouri River).
The centerpiece of the M&M was a wooden railroad bridge, which, when completed in 1856, was the first bridge across the Mississippi River. The bridge linked the M&M to the
At the same time, Durant manipulated the stock market, running up the value of his M&M stock by saying he was going to connect the Transcontinental Railroad to it. He was secretly buying competing rail line stock, and then said the Transcontinental Railroad was going to go to that line.[6]
Since the government paid for each mile of track laid, Durant overrode his engineers and ordered extra track laid in large oxbows.[7] In the first 2+1⁄2 years, the Union Pacific did not extend further than 40 miles (64 km) from Omaha, Nebraska. As the federal government was waging the Civil War, Durant avoided its oversight on railroad construction.
During the Civil War, Durant made a fortune smuggling
One of Durant's biggest coups was the creation of
Like many others, Durant lost a great deal of his wealth in the Panic of 1873. He sold his remaining stock in Union Pacific and started a new railroad company, Adirondack Railroad. He spent the last twelve years of his life fighting lawsuits from disgruntled partners and investors.[11]
Marriage and family
Durant was married to Hannah Heloise Trimble. They had two children: William West Durant, who became an architect, and Héloïse Durant Rose (c.1853–1943), who became an author, playwright, and literary critic.
In 1873 Durant summoned his family home to rebuild their fortune in the Adirondack Wilderness, where he had accumulated a half a million acres of land. His vision was to open up the wilderness to tourists and as a destination for the wealthy to own second homes. At the time, he owned the Adirondack Railroad and was seeking investors to continue the track from North Creek, NY on into Canada. He tasked his son William with pioneering the venture, though, according to William, he maintained ultimate control. William set his sights on his own architectural vision for the region and was instrumental in developing the first Great Camp architecture. Father and son encouraged wealthy investors to visit their Camp Pine Knot, entertaining them lavishly. William's camps Pine Knot, Uncas and Sagamore were eventually sold to Collis P. Huntington, J.P. Morgan and Alfred Vanderbilt.
Héloïse attended private schools in Europe and the United States, and was fluent in Arabic, French, German, and Italian. She became an American author, playwright, and book reviewer for
Death
Durant died in
Legacy and honors
- Durant, Iowa, was named after him.[12]
- Additionally, he endowed that eastern Iowa community with several hundred dollars to establish the first school there; today, the school is also named after him.[12]
- He achieved the construction of a wooden railroad bridge in 1856, the first to cross the Mississippi River.[citation needed]
- unincorporated community in the United States[13] that was established when the Union Pacific Railroad was extended to that point, during the building of the First transcontinental railroad.[14]
- In 1870, Durant was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers.[citation needed]
In popular culture
- John Marston portrayed Durant in the film Union Pacific (1939).
- Forrest Fyre portrayed Durant in the mini-series, Into the West (2005), in episode 4, "Hell On Wheels".
- the second season.
- Eric Rolland portrayed Durant in The American West.
- Durant's family life is fictionalized in the novel Imaginary Brightness: a Durant Family Saga.
- The A&E and Netflix original program Longmire takes place in the fictional town of Durant, Wyoming.
References
- ^ "Dead". Lincoln Journal Star. Lincoln, Nebraska. 7 Oct 1885. p. 4. Retrieved 2021-06-19.
- ^ The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Columbia University Press.
- ^ Garraty, John A.; Carnes, Mark C. (1999). American National Biography. Oxford University Press. pp. 143–4.
- ^ ISBN 9780385177283.
- ^ Mercer, Lloyd J. "Durant, Thomas Clark". American National Biography Online.
- ^ a b "Biography: Thomas Clark Durant (1820–1885)". American Experience “Transcontinental Railroad”. PBS.
- ^ Bain, David Haward (1999). Empire Express. New York, NY: Penguin Putnam. pp. 199–200, 225.
- ^ "Thomas C. Durant". Railroads in the Nineteenth Century. Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography.
- ^ "Crédit Mobilier Scandal." In Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History, 2nd ed., edited by Thomas Riggs, 312-314. Vol. 1. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2015. Gale In Context: Biography, 313
- S2CID 162194831.
- ^ a b Ames, Charles E. (1969). Pioneering the Union Pacific. New York: Appleton-Century Crofts. p. 25.
- ^ Government Printing Office. pp. 111.
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Thomas C. Durant
- ^ Sedgwick, Theron E. (1921). York County, Nebraska and Its People: Together with a Condensed History of the State. S.J. Clarke. p. 134.
Further reading
- Ambrose, Stephen (2000) Nothing Like it in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863–1869. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780743203173
- Myers, Sheila (2015) Imaginary Brightness: a Durant Family Saga. Createspace Publishing. ISBN 1506181325
- ISBN 978-0-393-06126-0.
External links
- Works by or about Thomas C. Durant at Internet Archive
- "Papers of Thomas C. Durant". Iowa Digital Library. Archived from the original on 2016-12-30. Retrieved 2013-01-24.
- Railroad History of Council Bluffs at the Wayback Machine (archived March 22, 2004)
- Durant Family Story