James J. Hill - Hill's Legacy

Hill's Legacy

Politically, Hill was a Bourbon Democrat. The Democratic Party's continued enchantment with the populist William Jennings Bryan led Hill to support Republican presidential candidates William McKinley (1896 and 1900), Theodore Roosevelt (1904), William Howard Taft (1908 and 1912).

Hill was a supporter of free trade and was one of the few supporters of free trade with Canada. In St. Paul, the city's main library building and the adjoining Hill Business Library were funded by him. In addition, he donated to numerous schools, including the Saint Paul Seminary.

In 1891, after three years of building, construction was completed on a new Hill family home on Summit Avenue in St. Paul. Over 400 workers labored on the project. Built at a cost of $930,000 and with 36,000 square feet (3,300 m2), the James J. Hill House was among the city's largest. As with his business dealings, Hill supervised the construction and design himself, hiring and firing several architects in the process. The house has many early electrical and mechanical systems that predate widespread adoption in modern domestic structures. After the death of Hill's wife in 1921, the house was donated to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. It was obtained by the Minnesota Historical Society in 1978 and today is operated as a museum and gallery. Upon completion of the Summit Avenue residence, Hill had the family's old house, which he had constructed in 1878, razed.

Though a Protestant, Hill maintained a strong philanthropic relationship with the Catholic Church in St. Paul and through the northwest. Hill's historic home is located next to the Cathedral, largely due to the special relationship Hill's wife, a practicing Catholic, had with the Diocese. The Hills maintained close ties with Archbishop John Ireland and Hill was a major contributor to the Saint Paul Seminary, Macalester College, Hamline University, the University of St. Thomas, Carleton College, and other educational, religious and charitable organizations.

In order to generate business for his railroad, Hill encouraged European immigrants to settle along his line, often paying for Russian and Scandinavian settlers to travel from Europe. To promote settlement and revenue for his rail business, Hill experimented with agriculture and worked to hybridize Russian wheat for Dakota soil and weather conditions. He also ran model experimental farms in Minnesota such as North Oaks to develop superior livestock and crop yields for the settlers locating near his railroads.

An enthusiastic conservationist, Hill was invited by President Theodore Roosevelt to a governor's conference on conservation of natural resources, and later appointed to a lands commission.

Drawing on his experience in the development of Minnesota's Iron Range, Hill was, during 1911–1912, in close contact with Gaspard Farrer of Baring Brothers & Company of London regarding the formation of the Brazilian Iron Ore Company to tap that nation's rich mineral deposits.

Near the end of his life, Hill played what a recent biographer, Albro Martin, called his "last and greatest role." After the first punishing year of World War I, the Allied Powers desperately needed financial support to continue the war effort. To that end, Hill was a major figure in the effort launched by J.P. Morgan to float the Anglo-French Bond drive of 1915, which allowed the Allies to purchase much-needed foodstuffs and other supplies. In September 1915, the first public loan, the $500,000,000 Anglo-French loan, was floated. Concomitantly, the resulting trade in munitions with England and France carried the United States from a depression in 1914 to boom years in 1915 and 1916.

Hillsboro, North Dakota; Hill County, Montana; and Hillyard, Washington (now a neighborhood of Spokane) - are named for him. In 1929, the Great Northern Railway named its flagship passenger train the Empire Builder in his honor. The train continues as Amtrak's daily Empire Builder, which uses former Great Northern tracks west of St. Paul, Minnesota. The James J. Hill House in St. Paul, Minnesota is a National Historic Landmark.

In 1887, the Great Northern's first company headquarters building was constructed in St. Paul. It was designed by James Brodie, who also built the Hill's house on Summit Avenue. The 1887 building was converted between 2000 and 2004 to a 53 unit condo in the Historic Lowertown District of St. Paul. Hill had seen the devastation done to downtown Chicago by the great fire of 1871. As a result, one feature Hill integrated into the construction of the 1887 company headquarters (the Great Northern General Office Building) was barrel vaulted ceilings constructed of brick and railroad steel rails that held up a layer of sand several inches deep. The theory was that if a fire broke out and the ceiling caved in, the sand would drop and retard or suppress the fire.

Hill was intimately involved in the planning and construction (1914–1916) of a new company headquarters in St. Paul (to be known as the Great Northern Office Building), which was to house the corporate staffs of the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific and Hill's banking enterprises. The 14-story building cost $14 million to construct.

Hill's heirs established the James J. Hill Reference Library in St. Paul, which is considered by the Small Business Administration the premier source for publicly accessible practical business information in the United States, and many SBA programs rely on the Hill Library's HillSearch service to provide business information resources to small businesses nationwide. The Hill Library has developed numerous online programs and now serves millions of small business owners worldwide.

In The Great Gatsby, Hill is the man whom Gatsby's father says Gatsby would have equalled if he had lived long enough.

Hill and his railway are mentioned in the Harry McClintock song "Hallelujah! I'm a Bum."

Supercentenarian Walter Breuning, the world's oldest verified living man from September 21, 1896 to his death on April 14, 2011, began working as a railroader for Hill's company in 1913 at the age of 17. He stated that he had to constantly hide, as Hill did not want anyone under the age of 18.