Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 25, 2007

Timothy Beach Blackstone (March 28, 1829 – May 26, 1900) served as president of the Chicago and Alton Railroad from 1864 through 1899. Blackstone was born in Branford, Connecticut, the sixth child, and fourth son, of James Blackstone and Sarah Beach. Health issues caused Blackstone to drop out of school in 1847, and he began working for Roswell B. Mason, surveying the New York and New Haven Railroad. He only worked on the NY&NH for a year before becoming an assistant engineer on the Stockbridge and Pittsfield Railroad. Again, he only remained with the firm a short time before leaving for the Vermont Valley Railroad. In 1851, Roswell invited Blackstone to supervise construction of the Illinois Central Railroad between Bloomington and Dixon, Illinois. Blackstone accepted the job and moved to La Salle, Illinois. Blackstone was elected mayor of LaSalle in 1854 and served a single term, his only foray into elected office. After leaving office, he returned to working on railroads, first as chief engineer of the Joliet and Chicago Railroad, which would eventually become the Chicago and Alton Railroad. Blackstone became president of the Joliet and Chicago Railroad in 1861, and he kept the line solvent while other divisions were filing for bankruptcy. When the system was reorganized, he was named president of the board of directors for the company. Although Blackstone served with the Alton Railroad for more than a quarter century, he refused a salary. When the Board of Directors voted to pay him $10,000 per year, he turned it down. He was the benefactor of the James Blackstone Library in Branford, Connecticut, and a nearly identical library was donated to the Chicago Public Library by Timothy Blackstone's widow in 1902. Chicago's Blackstone Library is the first dedicated branch of the Chicago Public Library system, and later his mansion became the site of the Blackstone Hotel and the Blackstone Theatre.