Oris Paxton and Mantis James Van Sweringen

Oris Paxton and Mantis James Van Sweringen (respectively, born April 24, 1879, Wooster, Ohio, U.S.—died Nov. 23, 1936, Hoboken, N.J.; born July 8, 1881, Wooster—died Dec. 12, 1935, Cleveland) were brothers and railroad executives who from 1916 purchased and reorganized several major U.S. railways. They were also real estate speculators who from 1905 developed Shaker Heights, a prosperous suburb of Cleveland, on land previously held by a Shaker religious community.

The Van Sweringens were inseparable in their personal lives as well as in their business endeavours. When transportation facilities for Shaker Heights proved inadequate, they created an electric transit system of their own. In 1916 they acquired the New York, Chicago, and St. Louis Railroad (the Nickel Plate); in 1922 the Toledo, St. Louis and Western, the Lake Erie and Western, and the Chesapeake and Ohio; in 1923 the Erie and the Pere Marquette; and in 1930 the large Missouri Pacific system. The Van Sweringens earned a reputation for restoring mechanically and financially run-down lines to efficiency and prosperity. By 1932 their system comprised 21,000 miles of rail. In that year, however, economic difficulties arose, and five years afterward, following the brothers’ death, their empire was broken up.