George H. Nettleton (George Henry Nettleton;November 13 , 1831 – March 26, 1896) was an American railroad pioneer and civil engineer from Chicopee, Massachusetts. He served as civil engineer for the Hannibal Bridge on Hannibal and St. Joseph line. He would go on to organize the first Kansas City Missouri Stockyards, and built the Livestock Exchange building. He also served as president of the Fort Scott & Memphis Railway.

Early years

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George H. Nettleton was born in Chicopee, Massachusetts to Alpheus and Deborah (Belcher) Nettleton. The son of a Congregational church leader...

George would leave Massachusetts to study civil engineering and mathematics in Troy, New York at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. After a year of studying, and his family struggling to afford the school, and he returned home.

Career

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With a passion for the railroad industry, George would work for the the New Haven & New London Railroad as laborer. Upon completion of the New Haven and New London line, Chief Engineer Josiah Hunt hand-picked Nettleton to head west to work on the Terra Haute & Alton Railroad.

In 1872, Nettleton became the general superintendent of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, and from his headquarters in Topeka, Kansas, supervised the line’s extension as far as the state’s western border.

At the age of 64, on March 26, 1896; George passed away.

Personal life

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Nettleton married twice: he met his first wife, Sarah Taylor, in Chicopee Falls. She died a year and a half after their marriage in 1858, and he married his second wife, Julia Augusta Hearne, in 1862.

George H. Nettleton Home

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In the early 1890s, he built a 12-room mansion looking over his industrial land. It was a large grey brick mansion in the Quality Hill district at 7th Street. After the death of Nettleton, his wife Julia donated the structure to the Woman's Christian Temperance Union to be used as a home for elderly women, until they left in 1917.


See also

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Chicopee, Missouri

Sources

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  • Sandy, Wilda (1984). Here Lies Kansas City. Kansas City, MO: Bennett Schneider.
  • Conrad, Howard Louis (1901). Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri. Louisville: The Southern History Co.,.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
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Category:1831 births Category:1896 deaths Category:People from Chicopee, Massachusetts