Born September 16, 1838

Rockwood, Ontario, Canada

Died May 29, 1916

St. Paul, Minnesota

Railroad builder

James J. Hill. © Bettmann/Corbis.

"Work, hard work, intelligent work, and then more work."

James J. Hill's recipe for success

Called the "empire builder of the Northwest," James J. Hill founded in 1878 what became the Great Northern Railroad Company, which built a rail line that ran from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Puget Sound in Washington. Hill became one of the wealthiest men of the nineteenth century, but he also shared with other railroad men a reputation as a "robber baron" when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1904 that his railroad and financial system violated antitrust laws (laws designed to punish businesses that dominate a market or industry and are alleged to have stifled competition). His larger reputation rests as a shrewd and visionary businessman, and as a generous philanthropist, one...