William Benson Storey, Jr. (November 17, 1857 – October 24, 1940) was the fifteenth president of the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison, Kansas, Atchison and Top ...

. Storey was born November 17, 1857, in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, the son of William Bainbridge Storey, an express, stagecoach and newspaper agent, and Ellen Dean (Benson) Storey. His family moved around following his father's career until 1866 when they settled in Colfax. in 1876, Storey started his railroad career with the

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

as a stake driver on the line between

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

and

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

. He used his earnings from that summer and the following year to finance his college education, and he graduated from the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

in 1881 with a mechanical engineering degree. He hired out with the

Central Pacific Railroad The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by Pacific Railroad Acts, U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete the western part of the "First transcontinental railroad" in N ...

and soon found himself working throughout

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

and

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...

as well as the

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

coast. Storey's association with the Santa Fe began when he was hired by the

San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railway The San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railroad was a California rail line between Stockton, California, Stockton and Bakersfield, California, Bakersfield constructed in the late 1890s and very shortly thereafter purchased by the Atchison, Tope ...

(a Santa Fe subsidiary formed to make the railroad's connection to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

) as chief engineer. He transferred to the Santa Fe in 1903 as chief engineer and worked his way up to the vice presidency of the Santa Fe in 1909. In 1917 he was appointed as the federal manager, and three years later, on January 1, 1920, he succeeded

Edward Payson Ripley Edward Payson Ripley (October 30, 1845 – February 4, 1920), sometimes referred to as Edward P. Ripley or E. P. Ripley, was the fourteenth president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Youth and education Ripley was born on Octob ...

as president of the Santa Fe. He served as president until his retirement from the position on May 2, 1933. Storey remained on the board of directors until his death in 1940, a year after his successor's own death.

References

* ''The New York Times'' (October 30, 1940),
W. B. Storey Dies
'. Retrieved August 19, 2005. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Storey, William Benson 1857 births 1940 deaths Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway presidents 20th-century American railroad executives