Business
Flinn's chief business interest was large-scale contracting. His firm of Booth and Flinn was formed in 1876 in association with James J. Booth. As a result of politics and a "lowest responsible bidder" scheme, Booth & Flinn won most large construction and paving contracts in Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, where they built streets, trolley lines, and bridges, usually amid charges by competitors of graft. The firm built the Liberty Tunnels, Wabash Tunnel, and Armstrong Tunnels in Pittsburgh, and in the later years of the company's continuation, the Holland Tunnel between New York City and New Jersey. (Booth retired from the firm in 1898; George H. Flinn, son of the founder, succeeded him, and in 1924 two other sons, William and A. Rex Flinn joined the company).
In The Shame of the Cities, the landmark 1903 book by Lincoln Steffens on political corruption in American cities, Steffens wrote about the alleged Flinn-Magee collusion: "Magee wanted power, Flinn wealth...Magee spent his wealth for more power, and Flinn spent his power for more wealth.... Magee attracted followers, Flinn employed them. He was useful to Magee, Magee was indispensable to him....Molasses and vinegar, diplomacy and force, mind and will, they were well mated." Reformers eventually reined in Flinn by passing legislation to curb corruption and kickbacks.
Flinn was also president of the Duquesne Lumber Company and the Pittsburgh Silver Peak Gold Mining Company. He sat on the board of directors of the Arkansas Fuel Oil Company, the Arkansas Natural Gas Company, the Gulf Oil Corporation, and the Pittsburgh Coal Company.
Read more about this topic: William Flinn
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