John Frank Stevens by Clifford Foust

Author:Clifford Foust [Foust, Clifford]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Historical
ISBN: 9780253010698
Google: HVaSAAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 2013-10-23T03:34:01+00:00

a tall square-shouldered man, robust of physique, clean-limbed, strong-bodied and with cool piercing gray eyes. He had a square jaw that bespoke the determination and will power but which rounded at the corners showing that he was gifted with the sterling qualities of good humanity. His nose expressed dominance and his rather large ears were evidence of generosity and that rare attribute of benevolence that is hard to put in words. His head was massive and sat firm and rugged on a sturdy neck that meant power and vigor. Broad between the eyes, he stood for ambition and intelligence. Prescience and quick analysis and sure judgment lay concealed on the width of brow and the pronounced expanse of forehead. The general contour of features, the steady gaze of the eyes and firm mouth left no doubt that he was a man to meet situations and to control them. An almost impalpable atmosphere of wholesome common sense radiated from him as he said: “Boys, what are we going to do about this? I want your individual opinion.”34

John Frank followed up this bit of extravagance with a bit of excess of his own. Uncharacteristically, he threw an informal dinner for “a few [fourteen] personal friends of the local newspaper world.” “Boys,” he said, “the reporters of to-day are as fine a set of gentlemen as I have ever met in my career.” Clearly some of Harriet’s soft soap had rubbed off. Earlier he had filled a box in Portland’s Heilig Theater with a group of his boys – Budd and E. P. Shannon, among others – for the opening of “The Midnight Sons,” a new musical comedy.

John Frank stayed on the project only another two and a half months, his resignation taking effect on May 1, 1911. Much as he had done at Panama, he left when the superheated zeal within him for long and hard work, danger, adventure, competition, and timely accomplishment had cooled and congealed. As at Panama, his departure date coincided with a logical break in the work but seems really to have satisfied his inner drives. This time, though, he had the good sense not to send a resignation letter written while overwrought. Construction continued to Bend (nearly fifty miles more) in the hands of the experienced Horace C. Henry Co. of Seattle. John Frank was given “one of the most lavish feasts ever spread at the Portland Commercial Club,” with forty dignitaries and “the boys of his family”: Budd, Shannon, William Gerig, and others.

John Frank had spent millions of Hill’s money. Hill, in his speech in Bend after driving a gold spike, claimed that the line from there down to the Columbia cost eleven or twelve million dollars.35 (Deposits in John Frank’s name in Chicago’s First National Bank alone amounted to $1,650,000, and Carlos Schwantes estimates the whole Northwest venture from Spokane west cost $60 million–$90 million, perhaps $1.5 billion–$2 billion today).36 Much later, John Frank summed up that “millions of dollars were wasted in that controversy. Such a thing could not happen today [1927].

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