Henry E. Huntington
Henry Edwards Huntington, railroad magnate and business leader. (b. Feb. 27, 1850, Oneonta, N. Y., d. May 23, 1927, San Marino, Ca.) He was the nephew of
Collis P. Huntington, one of
The Big Four, the men instrumental in the creation of the transcontinental railway. Huntington held several executive positions working along side his uncle with the Southern Pacific Railway.
When Collis died in 1900, Henry inherited much of his uncle's fortune. He also married Collis' widow Arabella Huntington. Shortly thereafter he moved from
San Francisco to
Los Angeles, a place he had visited only seven years prior. At that time he had exclaimed that one day someone was going to come here [to Southern California] and make a fortune in real estate and transportation. Little did he know that he was foretelling his own future. He founded the
Pacific Electric Railway, centered in Los Angeles, and developed a massive intercity transit system known colloquially as the Red Car Line. The main station was located at 6th and Main Streets. Trains ran laterally as far east as
San Bernardino,
Redlands,
Riverside and
Corona; as far west as
San Fernando and
Chatsworth; from the coastal cities as far north as
Santa Monica and as far south as
Newport Beach; and included the 1902 acquisition of the
Mount Lowe Railway in the
San Gabriel Mountains above
Altadena.
In 1903, Huntington began collecting rare books and manuscripts, many from prominent book dealer A.S.W Rosenbach. His collection grew into
The Huntington Library, which included an art collection and
botanical gardens on his estate in
San Marino, California. Today this estate is a most popular attraction for tourists, with daily tours being conducted of the library and its grounds. It is also an exclusive resource for researchers of local history.
In 1910 Huntington acquired the Wentworth Hotel in Pasadena to be renamed the
Huntington Hotel. This hotel served as the grandest hotel in Pasadena until 1990 when it was discovered to be seismically inadequate. It would go down in history as the largest unreinforced concrete structure in Southern California. The facility was sold to new owners who had the hotel razed and properly rebuilt to be named the
Huntington Ritz-Carlton.
Huntington retired from active business in 1916. His legacy includes several monuments to his name: the cities of
Huntington Beach and
Huntington Park, the
Huntington Library, the Huntington Hotel (now the Huntington
Ritz-Carlton),
Huntington Hospital, and
Huntington Drive, a grand boulevard whose median served as a main east-west artery of the Pacific Electric Railroad.
*The Huntington Library
*Encyclopedia Britannica
*Pasadena Historical Museum
*Altadena Historical Society
