Hale Holden

Hale Holden (left) and Fairfax Harrison, who was president of Southern Railway and an executive with the American Railway Association, in 1917.

In 1907, Holden left private law practice to become the general attorney for CB&Q, where his first assignments were to manage the railroad's interstate commerce litigation.[2] 1910 saw a number of changes to the CB&Q leadership team, first with vice president Daniel Willard leaving the CB&Q to become president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which led to Darius Miller's post being extended to include Willard's former position; then when George Harris resigned a few weeks later, Miller assumed the presidency and Holden became Miller's assistant.[2][11] Holden was promoted to vice president on November 8, 1910.[2] Following the sudden death of Darius Miller in 1914 from appendicitis, Holden assumed the presidency of the CB&Q.[6][7] As one of his last statements, Miller was reported to have asked Louis W. Hill to recommend Holden to James J. Hill as Miller's selection for his successor; Holden was elected president by the railroad's board of directors at a meeting on August 27, 1914, immediately after Miller's funeral.[2] At the time, Holden was the youngest chief executive, at age 45, of any American railroad.[3]

When World War I began and American railroads were brought under the control of the United States Railroad Administration (USRA), Holden was asked to head the USRA but declined the top position, opting instead to assist incumbent director William Gibbs McAdoo. In 1918, Holden stepped down from the CB&Q presidency (to be succeeded by Charles Elliott Perkins, Jr., the son of Charles Elliott Perkins[12]) to become USRA's central western region director, then returned to the presidency of the CB&Q in 1920, serving for another nine years.[3] Also in 1918, Holden was appointed as vice president and director of the American Railway Association, where he served until 1924.[3] He also served from 1922 to 1924 as chairman of the executive committee for Association of Railroad Executives.[3] In the 1920s, Holden advocated, including testifying before the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1922[13] and 1923,[3] for the consolidation of the railroads in the western United States into four large systems: the Hill railroads (which included Great Northern Railway, Northern Pacific Railroad and Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad), Union Pacific Railroad, Santa Fe Railroad, and Southern Pacific Railroad.[14]

In 1929, leaving the CB&Q again (to be succeeded by Frederick E. Williamson[7]), Holden became chairman of the executive committee for Southern Pacific Railroad (succeeding Henry deForest); he was promoted to chairman of the Southern Pacific in 1932, and finally retired in 1939.[3] Since the Southern Pacific management team was based in New York, Holden also maintained an apartment there at 610 Park Avenue in addition to his home in Chicago.[15][16]