Death and Legacy
He died in New York aged 68 in 1905, a victim of kidney disease, before any of his works on the London railways were completed but with the construction well underway. Though initially estimated to be as high as twenty-two million dollars, Yerkes' fortune ended up being well less than one million dollars thanks to a vast number of debts.
The events of Yerkes' life served as a blueprint for the Theodore Dreiser novels, The Financier, The Titan and The Stoic, in which Yerkes was fictionalized as Frank Cowperwood.
The crater Yerkes on the Moon is named in his honor.
Yerkes and his wife Mary were painted by his favorite artist Jan van Beers (National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC). His wife, the daughter of Thomas Moore of Philadelphia, was also painted in 1892 by the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury (1862–1947). In 1893 Müller-Ury painted from miniatures portraits of Yerkes' Quaker grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Silas Yerkes.
Read more about this topic: Charles Yerkes
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