Benjamin Holladay was an American transportation businessman responsible for creating the Overland Stage to California during the height of the 1849 California Gold Rush.
16 Facts About Ben Holladay
2.
Ben Holladay created a stagecoach empire and he is known in history as the "Stagecoach King".
3.
Benjamin Holladay learned the freight business at an early age and left home in his late teens for a road trip to Santa Fe in what was then Mexico.
4.
Ben Holladay then settled in Weston, Missouri, where he worked as a store clerk before serving as courier during the 1838 Mormon War for the state militia.
5.
Ben Holladay moved to California in 1852 where he was to operate 2,670 miles of stage lines.
6.
Ben Holladay acquired the Pony Express in 1862 after it failed to garner a postal contract for its owners, Russell, Majors and Waddell.
7.
Ben Holladay added significant infrastructure along the trail, including Rattlesnake Station.
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George Washington 8.
Between the Overland Trail and six other routes, Ben Holladay received government subsidies totaling nearly $6 million over a four-year period.
9.
Ben Holladay's "Eastsiders" completed 20 miles of track before the competition, using "every trick known to man" in the construction, including bribing the Oregon Legislature in October 1868.
10.
Ben Holladay financed the operation via German bankers, who bought $6.4 million of bonds.
11.
Ben Holladay won a federal subsidy and built the Oregon and California Railroad as far south as Roseburg, as well as controlling the Willamette River commerce through the Portland Dock and Warehouse Company, the Oregon Transfer Company, and the Oregon Steamship Company.
12.
Ben Holladay lost most of his fortune in the stock market collapse on September 18,1873.
13.
Ben Holladay died in Portland, Oregon, on July 8,1887, and is buried at Mount Calvary Cemetery in that city.
14.
At the heart of Ben Holladay Street was Denver's red light district.
15.
In 1870 George Washington Weidler, Trustee for Benjamin Holladay, platted out 'Holladay's Addition,' on 242 acres meeting the east bank of the Willamette River that Holladay had acquired from Portland pioneers Jacob Wheeler and his wife.
16.
Ben Holladay intended, in developing the property, to supplant downtown Portland as a business center.