John Warne Gates.
Born at West Chicago, Ill., 1855; kept a hardware store there; then became salesman in Texas for barbed wire; later established the Southern Wire Company in St. Louis and Braddock Wire Company near Pittsburg; after absorbing two other companies, sold out to Federal Steel Company, which was then absorbed by United States Steel Corporation. He thus acquired great wealth, and became a large operator in Wall Street, and organized the firm of C. G. Gates & Co., now dissolved. After buying control in the open market of the Louisville & Nashville Railway, he sold it to J. P. Morgan & Co.