Railway Entrepreneur
In 1879, though in poor health, Kittson embarked on his last major venture. With James Hill, Kittson joined forces with HBC representative Donald Alexander Smith and Montreal banker George Stephen to purchase the struggling Saint Paul and Pacific Railroad, reorganizing it into the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway. It established the first rail link between St. Boniface and St. Paul. In 1880, its net worth was $728,000; in 1885 it was $25,000,000. When Kittson sold his shares in the company in 1881, it made him a very wealthy man, running his investments into the millions. These same men later formed the nucleus of a syndicate established in 1880 that led to the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Read more about this topic: Norman Kittson
Famous quotes containing the word railway:
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)