Robert Edmund STRAHORN

Notes:

Robert was the brother of our great-grandfather, John Calvin Strahorn. He was born east of Bellefonte in Haines Twp. Centre Co., Pennsylvania. He wrote later how as a boy, he was impressed by Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858. He was typesetter and then a newspaper correspondent for the Denver News and New York Times during the Sioux campaigns of 1876-77, and fought alongside General Crook as an embedded reporter while covering the Battle of Rosebud. He was hired by Jay Gould as the first head of the Publicity Department of the Union Pacific Railroad from 1877-1783, and wrote a number of books about the resources and attractions of the western states, which helped generate waves of migration into those territories, greatly benefiting the U.P. He was instrumental in building the Oregon Short Line Railroad from Granger, Wyoming to Huntington, Oregon and through his Idaho & Oregon Land Improvement Co. founded or substantially developed the towns of Shoshone, Hailey, Mountain Home, Caldwell, Ontario, Payette, and Weiser along the route of the O.S.L. He was a founder and trustee of the College of Idaho in Caldwell. He went broke in the panic of 1893, then spent six years trading municipal bonds in Boston. He went on to build the North Coast Railroad under a secret financial arrangement with E.H. Harriman, and built Union Station in Spokane (which was demolished in 1974 for the Spokane World's Fair) and almost 750 miles of track in Washington State. This clandestine arrangement earned Robert the moniker "The Sphinx" because he would never publicly acknowledge his funding source. The North Coast Railroad was consolidated into the Oregon Washington Railroad & Navigation Co. with Robert as Vice President and General Manager. He went on to develop several railroad expansion projects into eastern Oregon through his Oregon, California & Eastern Railroad. In the period leading up the 1929 stock market crash, Robert acquired a number of commercial properties in downtown San Francisco, but was forced to deed them back to his lenders to avoid to foreclosure and bankruptcy in the years that followed. He died in 1944 in San Francisco (not in Spokane as is claimed elsewhere) and his remains are interred in a granite and marble mausoleum in Spokane along with both of his wives. There were no children from either marriage. Upon his death in San Francisco in 1944, Robert's remains were taken by his friend Thurlow Bryant (who was mentioned on page 572 of Ninety Years of Boyhood, Strahorn's autobiography) to Spokane, and Robert's personal effects, including his steamer trunk, his personalized binoculars, numerous photos and papers, and the publishing rights to his autobiography, were taken by Thurlow to his home in Caldwell, Idaho. Thurlow's wife Nellie gave these items to us in 1995 because we were the only relatives who had ever inquired after him. Thurlow died in Caldwell in 1992, and Nellie in 2001. - Gary Zentmyer

Robert married Carrie Adell GREEN 19 Sep 1877, Marengo, McHenry, Illinois. Carrie (daughter of John Wesley GREEN and Louise BABCOCK) was born 01 Jan 1854, Marengo, McHenry, Illinois; died 15 Mar 1925, San Francisco, San Francisco, California; was buried Riverside Cemetery, Spokane, Washington. [Group Sheet]

Robert married Ruby Shannon GARLAND 05 Oct 1927, St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco, California. Ruby was born 25 Aug 1883, Waco, McLennan, Texas; died 01 May 1936; was buried Riverside Cemetery, Spokane, Washington. [Group Sheet]