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Arthur Edward Stilwell, railroad builder and
urban promoter, son of Charles Herbert and Mary Augusta
(Pierson) Stilwell, was born in Rochester, New York, on October
21, 1859. At the age of fourteen or fifteen, following the
collapse of his father's jewelry business in Rochester, he ran
away from home and became a clerk, traveling salesman, and
insurance policy developer. In 1886 he moved to Kansas City,
where he founded trust companies and built belt-line railways.
Stilwell's first major project was a railway south from Kansas
City to the Gulf of Mexico for the purpose of exporting
midwestern agricultural products. The original terminal point
was Sabine Pass, Texas, but Stilwell formed a syndicate that
founded the town of Port Arthur on Sabine Lake. Despite the
depression of 1893, the flamboyant Stilwell drove the Kansas
City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad (later Kansas City Southern)
south from Kansas City to Port Arthur in 1897. The railway,
built with capital from eastern and Dutch investors, failed in
1899, and Stillwell lost control. In order for Port Arthur to
become a viable seaport, a canal had to be cut around the lake
to Sabine Pass, a costly and much-delayed project that was
completed in 1899. In 1900 Stilwell announced a project to
connect Kansas City with the closest port on the Pacific Ocean.
His goal was to secure trade with east Asia for the Midwest,
bypassing California ports. Near the town of Topolobampo,
Sinaloa, Mexico, on the Gulf of California, he founded Port
Stilwell. From 1900 until 1912 he constructed the Kansas City,
Mexico and Orient Railway from Wichita, Kansas, south through
Oklahoma to San Angelo and eventually to Alpine, Texas. The
Mexican Revolutionqv and a
lack of traffic led to bankruptcy for the railway, and Stilwell
was forced out of his firm. Stilwell blamed the "Cannibals of
Wall Street," and John W. Gatesqv
in particular, for his losses, and wrote several books on
finance and world affairs. He then published novels, poems, and
stories alleging that the ideas for his railways and Port Arthur
came to him from "brownies." Stilwell was a Christian Scientist.
He married Jennie A. Wood on June 10, 1879, and they had no
children. He died in New York on September 26, 1928. Among the
other Texas communities founded by his firms were Nederland,
Diaz, Rochester, Hamlin, Odell, Sylvester, and Rule.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Keith L. Bryant, Jr., "Arthur
E. Stilwell and the Founding of Port Arthur: A Case of
Entrepreneurial Error," Southwestern Historical Quarterly
75 (July 1971). Keith L. Bryant, Jr., Arthur E. Stilwell:
Promoter with a Hunch (Nashville: Vanderbilt University
Press, 1971). David M. Pletcher, Rails, Mines, and Progress:
Seven American Promoters in Mexico, 1867-1911 (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1958). Arthur E. Stilwell and James R.
Crowell, I Had a Hunch (Port Arthur Historical Society,
1972).
Keith L. Bryant, Jr.
- Handbook of Texas Online, s.v.
","
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/SS/fst58.html
(accessed March 4, 2008).
(NOTE: "s.v." stands for sub verbo, "under the word.")
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