The Vanderbilts, the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the Gould interests were all anxious to secure control. Myron Herrick's actions did not go unnoticed and soon other robber barons hoped to add the W&LE to their empires. Once again improvements were required and were soon underway, and as a result the combined properties achieved physical and financial stability. From its downtown passenger depot in Cleveland, which was located at the corner of Huron Road and Ontario Street, this acquisition added another 209.59 miles of track extending south to Zanesville, Ohio, with an eastern branch to Chagrin Falls. In eighteen months, Herrick credited himself with doubling the earnings of the railroad and reducing expenses by fifty percent even while initiating much-needed improvements totaling one million dollars, which consisted of building new bridges, reducing grades, and improving the roadbed.Īs a result of the W&LE reorganization, Herrick was also able to control and consolidate the assets of the Cleveland, Canton & Southern Railroad. Eventually the bonds were practically all placed in the west, and the improvements to the W&LE were soon under way. He applied to eastern financiers to obtain the funds required for the project, but such a high interest rate was demanded that Herrick decided to go elsewhere for the loan. Herrick decided that it would require at least $1.5 million to put the road in even a fair condition. It was encumbered with debt and had little or no financial standing. He found the W&LE property in extremely bad shape. With a route of 278 miles extending between Toledo and Martins Ferry, Ohio, it was the first railroad that Herrick acquired for the group.Īt that time Herrick knew almost nothing about the operation of a railroad. One such railroad was the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad (W&LE), of which Herrick was appointed receiver in January 1897. Railroad land acquisition, construction, and operation was usually very expensive and many railroad companies had losses that exceeded income for a variety of reasons and eventually fell into receivership. Such syndicates were numerous in the United States and were composed of wealthy and influential individuals who combined financial resources for a common purpose during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Herrick was associated with several American financiers that invested in railroads and as a group were called the 'Fuller Syndicate,' organized by investor Edward Layton Fuller, president of the International Salt Company. What is not commonly known is how he used his legal and financial influence, along with other investors, to control and expand various railroads of Ohio and the nation. Myron Timothy Herrick (1854-1929) is most often remembered as being raised as a farmer's son in Wellington, Ohio, a lawyer who became president of the Society for Savings bank in Cleveland, a Republican who was elected the 42nd Governor of the State of Ohio (1903-1905), and two-time appointee as ambassador to France (1912-1914, 1920-1929).

Wabash em railroad story