Alpheus Beede Stickney


Alpheus Beede "A.B." Stickney was the first president of the Chicago Great Western Railway, from 1884 to 1909.

Youth and education

Alpheus Beede Stickney was born in Wilton, Maine, on June 27, 1840, the first son of Daniel Stickney and his third wife, Ursula Maria Beede.

Railroad career

Stickney was a personal and professional friend of James J. Hill, a pioneering railroad magnate, who became known in his lifetime as "The Empire Builder". Stickney worked for him and he had a hand in Stickney's later railroads. Stickney in 1879 had been the construction superintendent for St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway, later known as the Great Northern Railway. James J. Hill in 1881 sent Stickney to be construction superintendent for the Canadian Pacific Railway. In 1885 he started what would become the Chicago Great Western Railway, which linked Chicago, Minneapolis, Omaha, and Kansas City. Clearing Yard in Chicago was founded by him in 1889.
Stickney was a maverick among railroad executives of the time. He favored some regulation by the federal government and was opposed to the most flagrant abuses of the railroads. His viewpoint is well illustrated by the following quotation:

Legacy

Stickney died on August 9, 1916, and is buried in Oakland Cemetery, St. Paul, Minnesota.
The village of Stickney, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago just south of Berwyn and Cicero, is named in his honor.