1. Austin Corbin was a 19th-century American banking and railroad entrepreneur.
18 Facts About Austin Corbin
1. 2.
Austin Corbin consolidated the rail lines on Long Island, bringing them under the profitable umbrella of the Long Island Rail Road.
3.
Austin Corbin was the owner of Manhattan Beach, a resort in Brooklyn, New York City, from which he barred Jews.
4.
Austin Corbin was the owner of the Sunnyside Plantation in Chicot County, Arkansas, from 1886 to his death in 1896, where he used convict laborers and later brought Italian immigrants to work on the land.
5.
Austin Corbin's brother, Daniel, was a businessman, involved in banking and railroads, who contributed to the early growth of Spokane, Washington.
6.
Austin Corbin taught school for a short time to earn money for higher education.
7.
Austin Corbin practiced law in his hometown until 1851, when he moved to Davenport, Iowa.
8.
In 1873, while following doctors' advice of ocean air for his ill son on Coney Island, Austin Corbin recognized the area as an untapped natural location for a summer resort, and proceeded to purchase 500 acres over the next three years, opening a large hotel and a new railway system to deliver New Yorkers to the resort in 1878.
9.
Austin Corbin next turned his attention to, in contemporary views, the neglected Long Island area.
10.
Austin Corbin greatly improved the railroad's infrastructure, which had fallen into disrepair after a period of cutthroat competition had thrown all the island's railroads into bankruptcy.
11.
Austin Corbin's tactic included the infamous strong-arming of the Montaukett tribe out of nearly 10,000 acres they owned around Montauk.
12.
Austin Corbin was the owner of the resort of Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn.
13.
Austin Corbin developed the Corbin Building in Manhattan between 1888 and 1889.
14.
Austin Corbin resided in a mansion in Newport, New Hampshire.
15.
Austin Corbin owned a summer estate in North Babylon, New York along the shores of what is known today as Deer Lake in the Parkdale Estates neighborhood.
16.
Austin Corbin's daughter married Rene Cheronnet-Champollion, a French artist and grandson of Jean-Francois Champollion.
17.
Austin Corbin died in a carriage accident near his country home in New Hampshire in 1896 at age 68.
18.
Austin Corbin is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.