The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-10-03
MACKEY'S RISE AND FALL.
Chicago Times-HeraIdO


D. ]. Mackey, the one-tine railroad
KING and millionaire, who filed a petit
ton in bankruptcy in the United States
court at Indianapolis yesterday, desires
70 again start even with the world
His liabilities are put at S577, 765. SO and
his assets at nothing.
aged and with hair silver white the
former millionaire is not brOken-Spirit-
ed. Before the work of clearing awav
the wreckage of his former failure had
been taken up he was UP and at it
again, and though he started from the
bottom and as humbly as a boy, he is
going forward at a. pace that promises
he may again take rank alongside the
men who control big industrial affairs
Crawford Fairbanks of Terre Haute
one OF the newer generation of Indiana
m1lIionaires, is backing Mackey in his
secoHd attempt to win a fortune
Mackey was born in Evansville in
1853 His father died when he was but
a child and left him the mother to sup
port At the age of Is he began to
work. and Of evenings he went to
school, He rose from q clerkship to a
partnership in wholesale house in a
few years
Mackey began investing his savings
IN the stock of the southern railroads.
This was in the '5es. After a time these
investments became so large that they
required all his attention, and he quit
the mercantile business. One by one
his railroad properties increased in
number; first it was the Evansville &
Terre Haute, then the Louisville, Ev-
ansvllle & st. Louis, the Bedford route,
the Peoria, Decatur < Evansville, and
the Evansville & Indianapolis.
This network of roads became known
as the Mackey system, and this from
tier president began TO make Evans
vile one of the greatest cities in the
west.
This was his hobby He built a large
theatre, a street railway system, large
business blocks. q magnificent hotel.
and began 10 develop mines and prop
critics about the city.
Mackey was the wealthiest man in
the state. He was known far and wide
Today he would be in conference with
eastern railroad presidents; tomorrow
ne would be walking from end to end
or one or his roads, making a close in
spection Of its condition. He occasion
ally took a hammer in hand and mend
ed car or q bridge, or with a shovel
leVeled the gravel on the grade. He
managed q system of RAILWAYS lust as
New England farmer manages q farm
with the same attention to detail and
with the same economy.
His adoption OF less conservative
METHODS and the beginning Of his down.
fail took place when he bought the old
c. W. & NJ. railroad from Benton Har-
Dor to Anderson, kept it but a few
months, and sold it out to the Big Four
clearing up a. profit on the transaction
OF S6OO,O0O. This gave him a taste for
railway speculation and for extending
his system more rapidly than business
principles would warrant So there
came turn in his career. His fortune
began to melt, his affairs became COM
plicated, and soon all was gone The
real collapse came about five years ago.
To make all this worse, about the same
time his wife and daughter died and
his only son sadly disappointed his
fathers expectations. The son is now
a brakeman on one of the roads his
father used to own.
Mr. Fairbanks had q great admira-
ton for Mackey; and three years ago
sent him here TO become a bookkeeper
In the Diamond paper mill 1t was
done with view of pensi0ning off the
old gentleman, and it was not thought
he would recover his general strength
and ambition and again set out on the
road to wealth.
But in a short time he surprised Fair
banks He was the best and busiest
head about the mill, and it was soon
hackey this and Mackey that, and he
gravitated as naturally to the top as a
rock sinks to the bottom of a pool. He
was made manager, the plant was ex-
tended, and he handled the mill with
remarkable ability, gaining the full ain
implicit confidence of the owners
Six months ago Fairbanks and NJ R
Williams, the latter of Chicago, bought
$4,000 acres of timber land on an island
in Georgia bay, and Mackey was put
in charge of getting the timber off He
is at present engaged at this and has
hundreds of men in his employ
Mr.. Mackey has few friends and no
cOnf1dants- His whole life at present
is given up to the paper mill in Ander-
son and the spruce lands in Georgia
bay. At night he reads the paper talks
with one or two friends if they chance
to drop around. and retires early. He
is up early in the morning and hard at
work again.