James Theodore Harahan

James Theodore Harahan (born January 12, 1841 in Lowell , Massachusetts , † January 22, 1912 in Kinmundy , Illinois ) was an American railroad manager who worked for the Illinois Central Railroad for over 20 years and was its president from 1909 to 1911. The Harahan Bridge over the Mississippi River is named after him, as is the Harahan (Louisiana) suburb of New Orleans .

Career

James Theodore Harahan was born in Lowell, Massachusetts to Thomas Harahan and Ann née McCuen. After school, he served with the 1st Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry of the Northern States during the Civil War and later was involved in railroading of troops and supplies in the Alexandria , Virginia area . After the war he went to the Nashville & Decatur Railroad in 1866 and rose to the position of Superintendent of the Memphis- New Orleans connection in the early 1880s . In the following years he was a manager at various railroad companies for several lines in Tennessee and Louisiana , including the Louisville and Nashville Railroad . In 1890 he received the post of Vice President at the Illinois Central Railroad and worked under the then President Stuyvesant Fish , where he was instrumental in the construction of the Stuyvesant Docks next to today's Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal of the Port of New Orleans and the Mays Yard , a Another large transshipment station in the northern part of today's New Orleans suburb of Harahan and not far from the port was involved.

In 1906 he followed Stuyvesant Fish as president of the Illinois Central Railroad . He held the position until his retirement in January 1911. Then he was for a joint project of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad ( Rock Island Line ), the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway ( Iron Mountain Railway , later Missouri Pacific Railroad ) and the St. Louis Southwestern Railway ( Cotton Belt Route ) to build a railway bridge over the Mississippi in Memphis. The railroad companies founded the Arkansas & Memphis Railway Bridge and Terminal Company on January 3, 1912 and elected James Theodore Harahan as its president.

Railway accident

A few days after his election he was killed on January 22, 1912 with three other high-ranking representatives of the Rock Island Line on the way to Memphis in a rear-end collision between two trains in Kinmundy (Illinois) . The four passengers were asleep in their private compartment car at the end of the train in the early hours of the morning when it stopped at Kinmundy to fill up with water and was hit by a subsequent train that noticed it too late. The mostly wooden compartment car was almost completely destroyed and the stationary train was pushed 60 meters forward.

The bridge, which was completed in 1916, was named Harahan Bridge in his honor . The city of Harahan , founded in 1920, is also named after him and is now a suburb of New Orleans .

Private life

James Theodore Harahan's first marriage was to Mary Bertha Kehoe. They had four children, two boys and two girls. Her eldest son, William Johnson Harahan (1867-1937), was born in Nashville in 1867 and went to school in New Orleans after the family moved. Like his father, William became a railroad manager, worked for the Illinois Central Railroad until 1907 and later became president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway . Mary Bertha Kehoe died in 1897 and James Theodore Harahan married his second wife, Mary Mallory, daughter of his longtime friend William Barton Mallory in 1899.

literature

Railway Officers Killed in Collision. In: Railway Age Gazette. Vol. 52, No. 4, 1912, pp. 142-144.
James Theodore Harahan: The General Manager. In: Edward Everett Hale (Ed.): Modern Achievement. Vol. 2, The University Society, New York 1904, pp. 200-211.

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b Jan Onofrio: Tennessee Biographical Dictionary. Volume 22 of the United States Biographical Dictionary , Somerset Publishers, 2000, ISBN 978-0403097005 , pp. 355-358.
^ Illinois Central Railroad - Stuyvesant Docks. Old New Orleans. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
↑ ^a ^b About Us. City of Harahan, Louisiana. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
↑ ^a ^b Ned Hémard: Harahan History. New Orleans Nostalgia, New Orleans Bar Association 2009. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
^ Cotton Belt History - Memphis, TN Branch. Arkansas Railroad Museum. Retrieved August 22, 2017.
^ ^A ^b Railway Officers Killed in Collision. In: Railway Age Gazette. Vol. 52, No. 4, 1912, pp. 142-144.

personal data
SURNAME	Harahan, James Theodore
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American railroad manager
DATE OF BIRTH	January 12, 1841
PLACE OF BIRTH	Lowell, Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH	January 22, 1912
Place of death	Kinmundy (Illinois)

[Onofrio-1] A ^b Jan Onofrio: Tennessee Biographical Dictionary. Volume 22 of the United States Biographical Dictionary , Somerset Publishers, 2000, ISBN 978-0403097005 , pp. 355-358.

[2] Illinois Central Railroad - Stuyvesant Docks. Old New Orleans. Retrieved August 23, 2017.

[CoH-3] About Us. City of Harahan, Louisiana. Retrieved August 23, 2017.

[NH-4] Ned Hémard: Harahan History. New Orleans Nostalgia, New Orleans Bar Association 2009. Retrieved August 23, 2017.

[5] Cotton Belt History - Memphis, TN Branch. Arkansas Railroad Museum. Retrieved August 22, 2017.

[RAG-6] A ^b Railway Officers Killed in Collision. In: Railway Age Gazette. Vol. 52, No. 4, 1912, pp. 142-144.