William Barstow Strong (May 16 1837 – August 3 1914) served as president of the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe RailwayThe Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often abbreviated as Santa Fe, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The company was first chartered in February 1859...
from 1881 to 1889. He is often referred to as either
William B. Strong or
W. B. Strong.
He was born in
Brownington, VermontBrownington is a town in Orleans County, Vermont, United States. The population was 885 at the 2000 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 28.4 square miles , of which, 28.3 square miles of it is land and 0.1 square miles of it...
on May 16 1837.
Strong graduated from Bell's Business College in
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and with more than 2.8 million people, the 3rd largest city in the United States...
,
IllinoisIllinois , the 21st state admitted to the United States of America, is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern state and the fifth most populous state in the nation...
, in 1855, and soon launched his career in railroading. His first railroad job was as a station agent for the Milwaukee and St.
William Barstow Strong (May 16 1837 – August 3 1914) served as president of the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe RailwayThe Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often abbreviated as Santa Fe, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The company was first chartered in February 1859...
from 1881 to 1889. He is often referred to as either
William B. Strong or
W. B. Strong.
Life and career
He was born in
Brownington, VermontBrownington is a town in Orleans County, Vermont, United States. The population was 885 at the 2000 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 28.4 square miles , of which, 28.3 square miles of it is land and 0.1 square miles of it...
on May 16 1837.
Strong graduated from Bell's Business College in
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and with more than 2.8 million people, the 3rd largest city in the United States...
,
IllinoisIllinois , the 21st state admitted to the United States of America, is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern state and the fifth most populous state in the nation...
, in 1855, and soon launched his career in railroading. His first railroad job was as a station agent for the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, a position that was introduced to him by his older brother
JamesDr. James Woodward Strong, theologian and scholar, was the first president of Carleton College. Despite lifelong illness and injury, Strong was a highly active man throughout his life, juggling multiple professional and personal occupations....
.
He married Abbie J. Moore, October 2, 1859, in
Beloit, WisconsinBeloit is a city in Rock County, Wisconsin, United States. As of the 2000 census, Beloit had a population of 35,775. Its 2007 estimated census was 37,710. The greater Beloit area is home to more than 91,000 residents. Beloit is the home of Beloit College...
. They had three children, a girl and two boys.
He worked his way through several railroad jobs successively for the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, McGregor Western Railway,
Chicago and North Western RailwayThe Chicago and North Western Transportation Company was a Class I railroad in the Midwest United States. It was also known as the North Western. The railroad operated more than of track as of the turn of the 20th century, and over of track in seven states before retrenchment in the late 1970s...
,
Chicago, Burlington and Quincy RailroadThe Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad was a railroad that operated in the Midwestern United States. Commonly referred to as the Burlington or as the Q, the Burlington Route served a large area, including extensive trackage in the states of Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri,...
(CB&Q), and as superintendent of the
Michigan Central RailroadThe Michigan Central Railroad was originally incorporated in 1846 to establish rail service between Detroit, Michigan and St. Joseph, Michigan. The railroad later operated in the states of Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois in the United States, and the province of Ontario in Canada...
in the 1870s. In this position, Strong was succeeded by Henry Brockholst Ledyard in 1876. He returned to the CB&Q after working on the Michigan Central and then joined the management team of the Santa Fe as General Manager, and was promoted to Vice President within a month.
On July 12 1881, he succeeded T. Jefferson Coolidge as president of the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe RailwayThe Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often abbreviated as Santa Fe, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The company was first chartered in February 1859...
(ATSF). Under his tenure, the ATSF expanded to about 7,000
mileA mile is a unit of length in a number of different systems. In contemporary English, mile most commonly refers to the statute mile of 1,609.344 meters or the nautical mile of 1,852 meters...
s (11,265
kmThe kilometre , symbol km is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one thousand metres and is therefore exactly equal to the distance travelled by light in free space in of a second....
) of
right-of-wayA right-of-way is a strip of land that is granted – through an easement or other mechanism – for transportation purposes, such as for a rail line or highway. A right-of-way is reserved for the purposes of maintenance or expansion of existing services with the right-of-way...
, which at the time made the ATSF the largest railroad in
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
. He held the presidency until his retirement in 1889.
The city of
Barstow, CaliforniaBarstow is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The population was 21,119 at the 2000 census.Barstow is a major regional transportation center. Several major highways including Interstate 15 and Interstate 40 converge in the city. It is the site of a large rail...
, where the ATSF maintained extensive shop and equipment construction and repair facilities, and the town of
Strong City, KansasStrong City is a city in Chase County, Kansas, United States. The population was 584 at the 2000 census. It is named after railroad magnate William Barstow Strong...
, are both named in his honor.
Other uses of the name William Barstow Strong
William Barstow Strong was the name of an
observation carAn observation car/carriage/coach is a type of railroad passenger car, generally operated in a passenger train consist as the last carriage...
owned by the ATSF and operated in business trains in the latter part of the 20th century.
William B. Strong was included in a list of names that traveled aboard
NASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's public space program. NASA was established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1958, replacing its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for...
's
StardustStardust is an American interplanetary mission of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, whose primary purpose was to investigate the makeup of the comet Wild 2 and its coma. It was launched on February 7, 1999 by NASA, travelled nearly 3 billion miles , and returned to Earth on January 15, 2006 to...
spacecraft which visited the
cometA comet is a Small Solar System Body that has coma and is bigger than a meteoroid. When close enough to the Sun, a comet exhibits a visible coma , and sometimes a tail, both because of the effects of solar radiation upon the comet's nucleus...
Wild 2 in 2004.
External links