Hetty_ The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon - Charles Slack [62]
About the time the Waco and Northwestern imbroglio started, Hetty took over another obscure, run-down branch line. This was a fifty-two-mile branch line of the old Texas Central Railway Company (different from Huntington’s Houston and Texas Central), connecting the towns of Garrett and Roberts, east of Dallas. When the Texas Central went through a financial reorganization, Hetty was faced with the prospect of turning in her $750,000 for a fraction of their value. Instead, she surrendered the bonds, plus $75,000 in cash to buy the spur line. This, she would turn over to Ned as the final test of his business abilities. Texas would be his principal home for the next sixteen years, a place big and wide enough to accommodate his bigger-than-life personality and appetites, and give him some of the happiest years of his life. It was there that Ned would prove himself as a businessman, not just an apprentice, with decision-making capacity and capital of his own. Ned would develop into one of the Lone Star State’s most colorful characters, leaving his mark on politics, railroading, agriculture, sport fishing, and automobile racing.
In January of 1893, Ned arrived in Terrell, Texas, thirty miles east of Dallas, to assume his position as president of the newly christened Texas Midland Railroad Company. At twenty-four, Ned Green was terribly young and inexperienced for the grandiose title of president of a railroad. But then, the Texas Midland wasn’t much of a railroad. It wasn’t just the small length of track that made the railroad seem insignificant; it was clearly outdated and poorly maintained. The wooden bridges were sagging badly and required frequent jacking; the cars were old and worn. Passenger and freight service on the line were unreliable.
Terrell today is part of the Dallas metro sprawl, but in 1893 it was a small, out-of-the-way town. Ned’s arrival, thanks to his mother’s notoriety and wealth, created immediate excitement. He made a grand entrance at the American National Bank carrying a certified check for $500,000, to be used to whip the railroad into shape. The deposit amounted to twice the existing assets of the bank. When the bank officers got over their shock, and confirmed the identity of this tall, cheerful, young man, they immediately made him a vice president of the bank.
Though the money was Hetty’s, when it came to decisions on what to do with a sagging railroad, she made it clear that her son was in charge. At first, for all of his confident bluster, Ned was terrified. When faced with a business decision, he told journalist James Morrow years later, he would immediately telegraph his mother in New York for advice. Her terse response: “You are on the ground. Mind your own business.” He would have to make his own decisions. He became so frustrated at her obtuseness that he traveled to New York to see her.
She asked him, “Suppose I were not here?” She drew from her New Bedford past an old whaling parable about a captain with two sons. “His sons were his mates,” Hetty said. “They wore uniforms and looked very spruce. But they didn’t take their turn at the wheel or stand watch. Finally the captain died, and no one on board being competent to navigate the ship, it went on the rocks. I sent you to Texas to learn the railway business. I can’t teach you by telegraph from New York. Go back and do the best you can.”
Once he got over his nerves, Ned made the most of his opportunity. He made himself a student of railroading, studying