James j hill descendants today

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James J. Hill, nicknamed the Empire Builder, embodied the archetypal American story of success, rising from poor dock clerk to multimillionaire railroad magnate. In time, Hill had gained control of the Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and the Burlington railroads. James J. Hill was perhaps more significant to the framing of the empire of the Pacific Northwest than any other individual. His decisions about rail routes and station stops had the power to turn fledging communities into robust cities -- and to cause other hopeful towns to die a bornin'. Settlers cultivated land along the margins of the tracks he laid, later shipping the products of their farms to distant markets via the trains. Hill's impact on the economic development of the Midwestern and Pacific Northwestern regions of the United States is difficult to overstate.

Early Years

James Hill was born in his family's log house in Rockwood, County of Wellington, Upper Canada (later Ontario) on September 16, 1838. He was the third child of four born to Anne Dunbar Hill and James Hill, a successful farmer who later

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James J. Hill

(1838-1916)

Who Was James J. Hill?

James J. Hill was a railroad executive who came from an impoverished childhood to found his own company in 1866. He would eventually helm the Great Northern Railway Company, which was responsible for huge railroad expansions in the U.S. Northwest. Hill would acquire other companies, though he faced legal action as the result of violating antitrust laws.

Early Life

Hill was born on September 16, 1838, near what is now Guelph, Ontario. His father was sporadically employed as a hired hand on farms but Hill was able to get good schooling in his youth at Rockwood Academy, where the headmaster waived the tuition. The death of his father when he was 14 meant Hill had to leave school to work while his mother ran an inn. He secured work with a grocer while studying with the Rev. William Wetherald, who taught Hill mathematics and English. His aptitude for algebra and geometry would serve him well in his later career.

Determined to be an animal trapper and fur trader, Hill moved to the United States when he was 17. After a brief sti

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St. Paul railroad baron James J. Hill was born in Canada in 1838. He moved to St. Paul in the Minnesota Territory by himself at age 17. In St. Paul, Hill began working as a clerk and shipping agent for several steamboat companies and quickly started his own transportation and fuel businesses. In 1878, he joined with several partners to buy out the failing St. Paul & Pacific Railroad.

Hill concentrated the following decade on extending this line, reorganized as the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba, into western Minnesota, Dakota, Montana and the Pacific Northwest. The final spike of the transcontinental track was driven January 6, 1893.

Over next twenty years, Hill managed his railroad, renamed the Great Northern Railway, and also ventured into mining, timber, land and livestock, as well as philanthropy. He faced battles with competing companies, including the Northern Pacific Railway. His attempts to overtake and merge with the Northern Pacific led to an antitrust suit by Theodore Roosevelt's government; Hill eventually lost.

Hill maintained a front-line