page_title: Henry Failing
section_title: Expanded career in banking and business
hierarchical_section_title: Henry Failing / Expanded career in banking and business
caption_attribution_description: View of the center of downtown Portland, Oregon, circa 1914 (possibly 1913), from the roof of the Multnomah County Courthouse, the west wing of which had only recently been completed. This view is looking north on 5th Street (now SW 5th Avenue) from Salmon Street. The Pioneer Courthouse, which still stands today, is in the center of the photo. At the lower left corner is the home of Henry Failing (d. 1898), which was sold in 1924 by his heirs and replaced by the Public Service Building. Between the Failing House and the Pioneer Courthouse is the former Corbett Mansion, built in 1874 as the home of Henry W. Corbett. In 1926, the Pacific Building was constructed directly adjacent to the Corbett house (between it and the Pioneer Courthouse), and in 1936 the house was torn down, after H.W. Corbett's widow passed away. Constructed in its place in 1938 was a new central bus depot [which closed in 1985 and sat empty for many years], itself replaced by a new, additional Hilton Hotel tower (its "Executive Tower") in 2002. Directly above the Failing house is the old YMCA building (since demolished) and the uppermost portion of the Oregon Journal Building. To their right is the Portland Hotel (demolished in 1951), on the block now occupied by Pioneer Courthouse Square. Towering above the Portland Hotel is the 15-story Northwestern National Bank Building (now the American Bank Building), and behind it (to its right) the Selling Building and The Oregonian Building. Above and to the right of the Pioneer Courthouse are two portions of what is now the Meier &amp; Frank Building, which at this point in time comprised a 10-story "annex" at 6th &amp; Alder connected to the main five-story building at 5th &amp; Morrison, but major expansion took place soon after this photo was taken. The Lipman-Wolfe &amp; Company Building (still standing and now the Hotel Monaco) is in view behind Meier &amp; Frank. The approximately six-story building with many arches at center right is the Goodnough Building, which was demolished in the 1980s and replaced by the first, main block of the Pioneer Place shopping mall.
context_page_description: Henry Failing was a banker, and one of the leading businessmen of the Pacific Northwest of the United States. He was one of Portland, Oregon's earliest residents, and served as that city's mayor in two non-consecutive periods, two-and-a-half years starting in 1864 and later a two-year term starting in 1873. He was a Republican.
context_section_description: Following his second term as mayor, Failing returned his attention to business. The First National Bank was the first bank established in Oregon (1866) under the National Banking Act, and for a number of years the only one west of the Rocky Mountains. Failing and Henry Corbett purchased nearly all its stock in 1869, and Failing became the bank's president, retaining that title until his death. The bank prospered under their joint management, becoming one of the most successful banks in the northwestern United States. Failing maintained an interest in other business enterprises, and held valuable real estate both in and on the outskirts of Portland.
  In 1871 Henry W. Corbett and Henry Failing amalgamated their hardware and machinery businesses as Corbett, Failing & Co., and two of Failing's younger brothers (Edward Failing, a partner in H.W. Corbett & Co., and James from the Failing business side) also became partners in the new business at the same time. The new business Corbett, Failing & Co. turned exclusively to wholesale merchandizing, and became the largest of its kind in the northwest.
  In the 1880s, Failing was among the key early investors in Henry Villard's Portland Hotel.
  Failing was elected a director of Oregon Railway and Navigation Company (ORNC) in June 1888, along with Corbett, Henry Villard, Christopher Meyer, John Hubert Hall, Sidney Dillon, Charles S. Colby, Colgate Hoyt, C. H. Lewis, W. S. Ladd, Cyrus A. Dolph, William H. Holcomb, and S. B. Wiley. Contemporary elections for the Oregon and Transcontinental and the Northern Pacific Terminal Company installed many of the same men on the boards of those companies as well (the latter company was to build Portland Union Station). The elections were understood to signal no change at ORNC, underscoring their intent to extend the Farmington Line to the Coeur D'Alene Mines, and were viewed as a defeat of Villard and his initiative to jointly lease property of the Northern Pacific and the Union Pacific.
caption: Failing's home, at the lower left in this circa 1914 photo, was located in what is now the center of downtown Portland. At the time of the house's construction (1876), the city's business center was located farther east.
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