Samuel Branson Hill (May 13, 1857 – February 26, 1931) was an American businessman, lawyer, railroad executive, and advocate of good roads. He substantially influenced the Pacific Northwest region's economic development in the early 20th century.
His projects include the Peace Arch, a monument to 100 years of peace between the United States and Canada; the Maryhill Museum of Art; the Maryhill Stonehenge replica; and the Maryhill Loops Road. His promotion of paved, modern roads is possibly his greatest legacy. He is remembered for his initiative to build the Columbia River Highway, connecting the Columbia Gorge with scenic byways.
Early life and education Sam Hill was born into a Quaker family in Deep River, North Carolina. His family was displaced by the American Civil War and Sam grew up after the war in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Hill graduated from Haverford College in 1878 (also his father's alma mater). At Haverford he studied Latin, Greek, French, and German as well as mathematics, science, English literature, logic, rhetoric, and political science.
He attended Harvard University for a year to receive a second bachelor's degree in 1879. At Harvard he continued his Latin and history ("Colonial History of America" under Henry Cabot Lodge) and studied forensics and philosophy ("German Philosophy of the Present Day" and "Advanced Political Economy"). Despite attending only one year, he became an extremely active Harvard alumnus, serving for several years on the Harvard Board of Overseers even though it required many transcontinental trips each year to attend meetings. He also joined (and, at times, led) Harvard Clubs in several cities in the U.S.
Early career and relocation to Seattle
After Sam Hill graduated from Haverford College in 1878 and Harvard University in 1879, he returned to Minneapolis to practice law. A number of successful lawsuits against the Great Northern Railway attracted the attention of the railway's general manager James J. Hill, who hired Sam to represent the railway. In 1888 Sam Hill married James Hill's eldest daughter Mary.
For over a decade, Hill played an important role in his father-in-law's business endeavors, both at the Great Northern and as president of the Minneapolis Trust Company. However, around 1900 they had some type of falling out, the nature and degree of which is unclear; it is not even clear whether the falling out was over business matters, Sam and Mary's difficult marriage, or possible early symptoms of Sam's manic tendencies. In any event, the break was not a sharp one: The two men continued a friendly correspondence in business matters.
After a 1901 journey across Russia on the then not-quite-completed Trans-Siberian Railway, Hill settled in 1902 in Seattle, Washington, where he had major interests in the Seattle Gas and Electric Company, which was focused mainly in the coal gas business.
Hill had announced his intention to settle in Seattle in December 1900, but his wife Mary did not take well to the Northwest and moved back to Minneapolis after six months in Seattle, with their two children and without Sam. He stayed in Seattle and embarked on a number of ventures in the Pacific Northwest.
World traveler
Sam Hill was an "inveterate globetrotter". He was fluent in German, French, and Italian, and learned at least a moderate amount of Russian. Hill made at least fifty separate trips to Europe in the course of his lifetime and visited Japan nine times between 1897 and 1922. All of Hill's extensive travels were during an era when transportation was limited to surface vehicles and vessels.
In the early 20th century, Hill was the only American member of the Geographic Society of Germany. He continually gathered harbor depth soundings and information about ocean temperatures in order to map ocean currents. He had this information added to high-quality custom-made globes of German manufacture repeatedly commissioned from 1902–1914, which Hill gave as gifts.
Among the friends Hill made in his travels was King Albert I of Belgium, who made him a Commander of the Crown and Honorary Belgian Consul for Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Hill and his friend Joseph Joffre (the Marshal of France) made an around-the-world trip together in 1922. He also befriended Queen Marie of Romania, who granted him the Order of the Crown in the Degree of the Grand Cross. Her 1926 visit to the United States was largely at his invitation., especially p. 235 for Hill's prominent role in her coming to America
Enterprises
After leaving the employ of his father-in-law J.J. Hill in 1900, Sam Hill undertook a variety of business ventures and other projects, with varied results.
Utility companies His Seattle Gas and Electric Company was continually in hard-fought rivalry with other utilities, most notably head-on competition with the Citizens' Light and Power Company, whose leadership included several defectors from Hill's company. Ultimately, after a price war, Hill was able to sell the company's gas facilities to the consolidated Seattle Lighting Company in 1904 on favorable terms.; p. 94 for the defections
Other ventures into utilities was less successful: The Home Telephone Company of Portland pioneered rotary dial telephones in the region, but ultimately this independent telephone company lost out to the better-integrated Bell System. Its stockholders were wiped out, and its bondholders – Hill himself was the largest of these – ultimately received 70 cents on the dollar.
The Deep Water Coal and Iron Company in Alabama was another business failure. At the end of his life the shares in this last enterprise were worthless, due in part to the Great Depression.; p. 281 notes that it netted a small liability in the settling of his will.
Maryhill community Starting in 1907, Sam Hill bought up most of what had been a small settlement called "Columbia" or "Columbus" near the Columbia River in Klickitat County, Washington, which he envisioned as a new community in the Inland Empire. He named the parcel Maryhill, after his wife and his daughter Mary – neither of whom ever actually lived there.
His original plan was to develop it as a farming community of Quakers, but Sam was the only known Quaker resident. Taken as a whole, his attempt to create the Maryhill community was one of Hill's least successful investments: He spent at least US$600,000 that never paid back in any significant measure.
Golf course and restaurant A more modest, but successful undertaking was a golf course and a large, simple restaurant at Semiahmoo, just north of the U.S.–Canada border and Hill's Peace Arch. The restaurant was basically an early fast food establishment. During Prohibition the restaurant benefited from being on the Canadian side of the border, where alcoholic beverages could be served legally.
Advocate for paved roads
Sam Hill devoted much attention to advocating construction of modern roads in Washington and Oregon. In September 1899 Hill created the Washington State Good Roads Association which persuaded the Washington State Legislature to create the Washington State Department of Transportation in 1905. He also advocated the use of convict labor to build roads.
Hill's land around Maryhill proved useful for his advocacy. From 1909–1913 he laid of asphalt-paved Macadam road at his own expense (US$100,000). It was the first such road in the Pacific Northwest and Hill experimented over its length with seven different paving techniques. The part of this road that remains – now called the Maryhill Loops Road – is normally open to pedestrians and bicyclists and closed to motor traffic. It is the site of annual longboard races and downhill bicycle events.
In 1907, Hill persuaded the University of Washington to establish the United States' first chair in highway engineering. He could not persuade the State of Washington to build a highway on the north bank of the Columbia River, but in 1913 Oregon governor Oswald West and the Oregon Legislative Assembly visited Maryhill to inspect his experimental prototype road. Subsequently, the State of Oregon built the scenic Columbia River Highway, which linked coastal Astoria, Oregon and The Dalles, Oregon. In recognition of his influence, a plaque honoring him was placed along Historic Columbia River Highway, at Chanticleer Point, Oregon.
Also in honor of his advocacy for good roads the bridge near Maryhill for U.S. Route 97 across the Columbia River was named the Sam Hill Memorial Bridge.
Sam Hill was also a strong advocate of better roads for Japan, and of Japanese-American friendship, which earned him the Third Class Order of the Sacred Treasure in 1922.
Monuments and institutions Sam Hill built two notable monuments and an art museum, and purchased the private Minneapolis Athenaeum and donated it to the city.
Maryhill Stonehenge
The Stonehenge replica at Maryhill commemorates the dead of World War I. Maryhill Stonehenge It was built by Hill as a reminder that in the present day people are still being sacrificed to the god of war.
Maryhill Art Museum
Hill began to build a mansion at Maryhill, but the project was not completed in his lifetime due to a combination of financial reversals and his frustration at the State of Washington's failure to build a road on the north bank of the Columbia or to otherwise make the area readily accessible.
At the urging of his friend Loie Fuller, Sam decided to re-purpose the building as an art museum. The museum was dedicated by Queen Marie of Romania in 1926, but did not open to the public until 1940, nine years after Hill's death.
Peace Arch
The Peace Arch—where today's Interstate 5 highway crosses the U.S.–Canada border between Blaine, Washington, and Surrey, British Columbia—celebrates peaceful relations and the open border between the two nations. Peace Arch
Minneapolis Athenaeum
Hill served for a time as vice president of the Minneapolis Athenaeum, a private subscription library, and recruited George Putnam as its librarian in 1884. In 1907, he donated a collection of Chinese prints. He eventually acquired all the stock of the Athenaeum Company, which he donated to the public Minneapolis Foundation.
Politics Hill identified as a Republican and at times was active in the party. He disliked Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting and thought that William Howard Taft was such a disastrous choice for president that he openly endorsed William Jennings Bryan in 1908, and Woodrow Wilson in 1912 and 1916. He eventually came to oppose Wilson some time after the end of World War I.
He was generally ill-disposed toward labor unions. passim; see especially p. 44–45
Personal and family life Marriage Sam Hill married Marie Francis Hill (also known as Mamie Hill and, after their marriage, as Mary Hill Hill), a daughter of James J. Hill, on September 6, 1888. A generous wedding gift from her father placed them immediately into the ranks of the wealthy.
Their two children were Mary Mendenhall Hill (born July 3, 1889) and James Nathan Branson Hill (born August 23, 1893). Mary was Catholic and Sam agreed that their children would be raised Catholic. Sam was a Quaker, but over the next decade or two he maintained excellent relations with various Catholic clergy – even some close friendships.
Their marriage was never a love-match and by 1900 when Sam had decided to settle in Seattle, the marriage was coming apart. Mary left Sam in Seattle and moved back to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area with their children; she eventually moved to Washington, D.C.