Robert R. Young - New York Central

New York Central

In the early 1950s, Young turned his attention to the New York Central Railroad (NYC). In 1954, after a long proxy struggle and with the aid of Clint Murchison, Sr. and Sid Williams Richardson, Young gained control of the NYC and became the chairman of its board.

Young maintained offices and an apartment in New York City. However, he preferred to do most of his office work in the privacy of the den of his mansion at Newport, Rhode Island. Among his circle of friends were the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

The dreams of Young and innovative Alfred E. Perlman, whom he selected to become president of the NYC, to form a true transcontinental line were frustrated by antitrust suits and by lack of interest on the part of the western lines to merge with the nearly bankrupt New York Central corporation.

Many of Young's friends and smaller investors lost money as NYC stock prices fell. On January 25, 1958, Young, who had suffered from depression for more than fifteen years, committed suicide at his winter mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. He is interred in Newport, Rhode Island. Oddly, Young had helped to restore an old cemetery in Canadian, which was renamed in honor of his aunt, Edith Ford, who had helped to rear him after the early death of his mother. That graveyard is today known as the Edith Ford Cemeteries.

Young donated rare papers to the University of Texas at Austin. For the rest of his life, he maintained lifelong correspondence with friends he had made in boyhood.