Henry Edwards Huntington
Henry
Edwards Huntington (1850-1927), a shaper of economic life in Southern
California during the early decades of the 20th century and the man
often called the greatest of all book collectors, was born in modest
circumstances in the town of
Oneonta
in central
New York
. His father
owned a general store selling dry goods, hardware and groceries. As a young
man,
Huntington
worked for a time in a department store and as a sawmill manager.
Huntington’s
great good fortune was to be born the nephew of tough, shrewd Collis P.
Huntington who, from the same modest beginnings as Henry’s father, went
on to become a founder of the Southern Pacific railroad, a man of immense
wealth, and one of the most powerful (some say ruthless) figures in
California’s history – one of the so-called "Big Four"
that included Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker.
Collis
mentored and supported his nephew throughout Henry’s early years. As president of the
Chesapeake
and
Ohio Railroad, he gave Henry his first important job, supervising railway
construction in
Tennessee
and
Kentucky
, then made him
Superintendent of the railway subsidiary. In 1892, he brought Henry to
San Francisco
as his
assistant, Collis then being president of the Southern Pacific Company.
Over
the years, Henry built a reputation apart from his uncle and showed a skill at
making money. He was especially interested in
Southern
California
as a territory for railway expansion. In 1898, he
formed a syndicate to buy and reorganize the street railway system of
Los Angeles
. On July 4,
1902, a crowd of 30,000 watched a "Big Red Car" of
Huntington
’s
Pacific Electric Railway complete the interurban line’s first scheduled
run to
Long Beach
.
Within a few years, Pacific Electric was operating the most extensive
inter-urban system in the nation, linking hundreds of
Southern
California
towns with more than 900 red cars on more than 1,100
miles of track.
"A
generation of Angelinos rode his red (interurban) and yellow (local) trolley
cars to the office, the theater, the beach, and the mountains," writes
John Weaver in "
Los Angeles
: The
Enormous
Village
." "Racing along at
speeds of 40 and 50 miles an hour (the horse car had moved at the rate of 7-1/2
miles an hour), the Pacific Electric cars enabled
Southern
Californians
to live among orange trees and work in downtown skyscrapers."
Weaver goes on to add: "The pattern for the city’s sprawling
development had been established by the world’s finest mass rapid transit
system."
Bolstered
by a huge fortune bequeathed him by Collis Huntington when he died in 1900
(Henry married Collis’ widow, Arabella, 13 years later), the already
wealthy Huntington turned his attention to establishing the legacy for which he
is perhaps best remembered -- the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Calif.
Attracted
to the beauty of the
San Gabriel
Valley
,
Huntington
purchased the site of the current library, then called San Marino Ranch, in
1902 as income-producing property (citrus fruit). Years later, he built an
elegant mansion to house the rare book and art collection he had been
assembling since the 1880s. Surrounding the mansion were botanical gardens and
lawns, now estimated to contain 15,000 varieties of plants and shrubs. In 1919,
saying that he wanted to "give something to the public" before he
died,
Huntington
signed documents that transformed the 207-acre estate into a public trust
"to promote and advance learning, the arts and sciences, and to promote
the public welfare…"
Inside
the library, one of the largest and most complete research facilities in the
country, are housed such rarities as a Gutenberg Bible in vellum, the Ellesmere
manuscript of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, an unsurpassed
collection of Shakespeare early editions, papers of the Founding Fathers, and
rare books and manuscripts in the fields of U.S. and British history and
literature. The art gallery features 18th Century British and
European paintings, including the famed "Blue Boy" and
"Pinkie," rare tapestries, sculpture, and period furniture.
Throughout
his life, writes James Thorpe in "Henry E. Huntington: A Biography,"
Huntington was recognized as an extremely hard worker with a practical turn of
mind, friendly, courteous and with a deep love of family. On the list of
pioneer developers of
Southern California
, he
ranks among the highest. But the greater accomplishment, says Thorpe, "was
collecting what can be considered the most important private library of its
time on the broad theme of Anglo-American culture, acquiring a great collection
of British art, building a set of botanical gardens, and creating out of all of
them a research institution for the benefit of human knowledge and
culture." The
Huntington
is now one of
Southern California
’s most popular tourist
attractions, attended by hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
Huntington
died of
bronchial pneumonia in 1927 at the age of 77.
For
information about the history of
Los
Angeles
' urban rail system see: the Electric Railway Historical
Association website.
--
Contributed by Albert Greenstein, 1999
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