Sublime

first by hiring more for attitude than experience,

Earl Gerald,

Jim Hill wasted little time, after gaining full control of the Saint Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba, in sending Farley packing. Hill showed little sensitivity to the old man’s ego, to his greed, or to his clear ability to retaliate. When Farley confronted Hill in the spring of 1879 with the impossible demand that he be made a director of the new c

Alan van Valkenburg

But retreat—or surrender—was not in Henry Flagler’s nature. He turned to Meredith’s second-in-command, William J. Krome, the strapping young civil engineer who had led the ill-fated mapping expeditions through the wilds near Cape Sable; without hesitation,

“And where is Fireman?”

the collapse of the gutta-percha

Indeed, his knowledge of the railroad, in even the most minute detail, quickly became a matter of legend. For example, while standing on a Dakota rail siding one day, he spotted an engine numbered 94. From that recognition, Hill astounded the engineer by walking up and addressing him by name—Roberts—and noting that the engine had just been in for r