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Van Horne’s trip to the West Coast in the spring of 1899, just before he retired from the railway presidency, reinforced his view that he did not want to devote the remaining years of his life to his many hobbies. So long as he had major responsibilities, first as general manager and then as vice-president and president of the CPR, he found that painting and building up magnificent collections of art, porcelain, and model ships enthralled and delighted him. Once he resigned, however, they failed to kindle the same level of interest for him. He realized that hobbies could not fill his life.

At this point, Van Horne was only fifty-six years old, but he knew that his health had been “in an uncertain state for several years.” Nevertheless, there was still too much energy churning in his massive frame to allow him to settle into a life of ease. What he needed was a major challenge, one that would tax his problem-solving abilities to the utmost and give a new edge to his life. Alternatively, he said, he wanted a project that involved “working out schemes.” Fortunately, just such a project came his way — building the Cuba Railroad.

When Van Horne agreed in 1881 to mastermind the construction of the CPR, he took on a tremendous gamble. That was nothing, however, compared to the audacity he demonstrated in organizing and completing the construction of a railway in Cuba. A developing nation, Cuba had just emerged from nearly four centuries as a colony of Spain. To obtain its independence, it had engaged in a series of minor rebellions and skirmishes that culminated in the War of Independence from 1895 to 1898. At that juncture, the devastated island was acquired by the United States, the victor in the Spanish-American War, which was fought over the issue of Cuban independence. The last stages of this struggle were so costly that starvation and anarchy were widespread. Visible signs of the war’s impact were everywhere, from closed schools and abandoned farms and plantations to a wretched shabbiness and stench in Havana, the national capital. There were also fewer people on Havana’s streets: for years Spain had herded the rebels and their allies into disease-ridden concentration camps. As a result, the island’s population had plummeted from approximately 1.8 million in 1895 to 1.5 million in 1899. There was an alarming shortage not only of labour but also of horses and oxen — all of which were essential to any large construction project in this pre-mechanized era.

To further complicate the problems of doing business, Cuba operated in a bureaucratic nightmare after Spain’s departure. Corrupt courts and a chaotic monetary system were everyday facts of life. Combined with the devastation and disease caused by the war, they presented a daunting challenge to the American military government when it took office in January 1899.

Notwithstanding all these drawbacks, Cuba was a country brimming with investment opportunities. In the aftermath of the war, streetcars, bridges, warehouses, sugar storage facilities, and sugar plantations all needed extensive renovation. In fact, no sooner had the smell of gun smoke vanished from the air and shipping been restored than hordes of entrepreneurs began descending on the island eager to snap up development projects. Among these promoters were Canadians who had carved out a niche for themselves in areas that had become Canadian specialties: insurance, utilities, and transportation. Seeking out new investment opportunities, these men came armed with capital from British, American, and Canadian sources.

Competing with the Canadians were American entrepreneurs. Among them was a young man, Percival Farquhar, who would link up with Van Horne and play a key role in the construction of the Cuba Railroad. Farquhar was a Quaker, a trained engineer and lawyer who, during his years at Yale College, had made friends with several Cubans. After a career as a Wall Street speculator, this suave and good-looking thirty-four-year-old left for Cuba to pursue his capitalist dreams. Ultimately, he would come to represent some of the worst excesses of financial capitalism, such as issuing debt on debt and persuading inexperienced politicians to sell state-owned properties at a fraction of their true value.

After arriving on the island, Farquhar set his sights on a scheme to electrify Havana’s streetcars, which were then drawn by emaciated mules and horses. The deplorable state of the city’s transportation system also attracted the attention of some of Van Horne’s business friends. One of these was General Russell Alger, who had resigned his position as American secretary of war in 1899. Another was the well-known Cuban diplomat, writer, and orator Gonzalo de Quesada. Van Horne, in fact, would later claim that it was Quesada who first drew his attention to investment opportunities in Cuba. Irrespective of who it was, he suggested that Van Horne develop an electrical transportation system for Cuba’s capital.

As they had in the past, the twin themes of transportation and money making had an irresistible appeal for Van Horne. Indeed, he was so excited by the prospect of making huge returns from a scheme to electrify Havana’s tramway system that he invited William Mackenzie, a corporate empire builder in Canada, and other associates from similar enterprises to form a syndicate to pursue one of the two transit concessions that were then available. To their chagrin, Van Horne and Mackenzie’s group lost the bitterly contested fight waged by several syndicates for both prizes. Nevertheless, Van Horne accepted an invitation to sit on the board of directors of one of them — the Havana Electric Railway. No sooner was he on the board than he learned from a prominent Cuban businessman that the company’s construction payment rolls contained the names of many fictitious workers. Van Horne immediately recommended that the matter be investigated. “The method of robbery referred to is not peculiar to Cuba,” he informed the company’s president. “We have to carefully guard against it even here in honest Canada.” Unfortunately, the Havana Electric Railway would soon attract a great deal of hostility on the part of American investors who resented its practice of selling stock to Cubans and Spaniards. As a result, Van Horne tried to hide his connection with the company and even refused the presidency when it was offered to him.

Before long, Van Horne became involved in a far more ambitious Cuban undertaking: the building of a trunk railway that would run along Cuba’s spine, linking the seaport of Santiago at the island’s east end with Havana at the west end. In doing so, it would reduce the travel time between the two ports from ten days to one. As the only trunk railway serving eastern Cuba, the railway would help to open up the country’s rich interior and generate wealth. This largely undeveloped interior contained extensive deposits of copper, iron, and other minerals as well as vast tracts of land suitable for cattle raising, the cultivation of sugar cane and tobacco, and the growing of invaluable groves of cedar, mahogany, and ebony.

It was Farquhar who got Van Horne involved in the railway. He had earlier formed a syndicate to pursue his dream and lined up a group of British investors to finance it. When they backed out, he began searching for another investor to replace them. One of the syndicate members, General Samuel Thomas, an ex-president of several American railways, had previously introduced Van Horne to Farquhar. In the spring of 1899, Farquhar approached Van Horne and asked if he would assume the leadership of the syndicate. He lobbied him vigorously, both when they met in New York and by letter to Montreal. Initially Van Horne resisted becoming involved because of the many problems he foresaw: the possible profit did not justify the risk; construction costs were prohibitive; there was an acute shortage of Cuban labourers; many years of “bushwhacking” would inevitably be involved in such an undertaking; and corruption seemed endemic on the island: “Cuba has a liberal supply of artistic liars,” he warned, “and several of them are interested in selling their railways.”

Still, Van Horne kept a sufficiently open mind on the subject to ask Farquhar to go to Cuba and explore the situation further. For months the project languished, only to be revived when the young entrepreneur returned to New York with a favourable report on Cuba’s outlook. Convinced that the time was ripe, he urged Van Horne to go to the island and take stock of the situation himself. Van Horne had just been elected to the board of directors of the Havana Street Railway, so he agreed and set out on his first visit to Cuba. It became a decisive fact-finding tour that opened a new and exciting chapter in his life.

Once in Cuba, Van Horne was struck by the poor railway system on the island. To serve a country equal in size to Pennsylvania, there were only eleven hundred miles of track, 90 percent of which radiated out from Havana. Additional track encircled the populous seaport of Santiago, but little more than a hundred miles of railway served the largest and richest provinces in the country — Santa Clara, Camaguey, and Oriente. For the most part, these sugar-rich eastern provinces, representing three-quarters of the island’s area, could be reached only by water.

Van Horne recognized that there were many drawbacks to doing business in Cuba, but at the same time he grasped the significance of the island’s unlimited resources and the prospects for development. He visualized a thinly populated, underdeveloped island transformed by the construction of a railway that linked Havana with Santiago and the city of Camaguey (then known as Puerto Principe), the largest city in the interior. In pushing the CPR through to completion, he had helped to transform western Canada. Perhaps he could now make things happen in Cuba. He had also fallen in love with the island and its people, and he was now prepared to ignore many of the drawbacks that had earlier discouraged him from embracing the railway scheme. He accepted Farquhar’s invitation to head up the syndicate.

The first hurdle he had to overcome was the Foraker Act. Enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1899, it prohibited the granting of franchises or “concessions of any kind whatsoever” to foreigners during the American occupation. As long as the Act was in force, any company that attempted to build a railway in Cuba would not have the power to expropriate lands for rights-of-way or to lay track across navigable waters, public property, or public roads. To further complicate matters, any railway project that Van Horne launched in Cuba would have to proceed without a subsidy or land grant. These obstacles alone should have been enough to discourage him from starting any railway venture in Cuba, but the aggressive Van Horne would never let bureaucratic rules stand between him and his favourite projects.

As soon as he had made up his mind to build the railway, he began to ponder ways to get around the Foraker Act — always with the goal of serving the best interests of the Cubans themselves. He thought perhaps that he could evade the provisions of the Act if individuals or a corporation bought separate parcels of private land and then built the railway along these strips. When he checked with a lawyer friend, he learned that there was nothing in Spanish law (which still operated in Cuba even under the U.S. military government) to prevent such purchases. With this assurance, Van Horne charged full steam ahead.

Van Horne was fortunate in having the support of the second U.S. military governor, General Leonard Wood. An army surgeon who had graduated from Harvard’s medical school, Wood believed that a railway was essential to make eastern Cuba accessible to the “civilizing” and “modernizing” influences of economic development and to form close ties to the United States. He therefore aided and abetted the undertaking after receiving assurances that it would benefit Cuba and not merely enrich a few wealthy individuals. Wood and Van Horne soon developed a close friendship.

In March 1900, Van Horne journeyed to Washington to seek the support of the American government. Luck was with him as President McKinley quickly approved the plans when the scheme was outlined to him. It would have been difficult for him to do otherwise because the construction of the railway promised immediate employment for large numbers of Cubans. And once completed, the line would serve as an indispensable catalyst for the development of Cuban resources.

Less than two months after his departure for Cuba, Van Horne was back in Montreal, working feverishly to set up a new company — the Cuba Company — to build the railway. He decided to approach only very wealthy friends and acquaintances, men who could afford to wait indefinitely for a return on their money and who could produce capital during difficult periods when funds and enthusiasm ran low. To ensure that control remained in such hands, he priced each share of stock at $50,000 and limited each shareholder to eight shares. He also inserted a penalty clause stipulating that shareholders who did not contribute an additional 40 percent of their investment when they were asked to do so would have to sell their shares. Unfortunately, recurring shortages of funds later caused him to regret he had not asked for more start-up capital.

To line up the necessary capital, Van Horne made a pilgrimage to New York, where he found himself “in the position of a small boy with his pockets full of bonbons, and all the shares [he] would not let go willingly were taken away from [him].” It seems that everyone he invited to purchase stock did so immediately. As a result, Van Horne had to ask some of the larger subscribers to drop a few of their shares in order to accommodate the wishes of more recent parties. His appeal was ignored. When he returned to Montreal, he had but a small holding for himself, but had managed to line up probably the most impressive list of subscribers ever associated with any commercial enterprise in the Americas.

One of these subscribers was James Jerome Hill, Van Horne’s long-time rival from earlier days in the American Midwest. They remained good friends, however, with genuine respect for each other in all things related to railroading. Another subscriber was Thomas Ryan, the vice-president of the Morton Trust Company, though initially he did not jump at the opportunity to join the roster. In fact, he ridiculed Van Horne’s bold gambit, contending that “it was a waste of time for him to turn his back on an Empire and go chasing a Rabbit.” Van Horne’s legendary energies should, he said, be deployed in a scheme that would produce a real empire for him to rule over. The scheme called for Ryan and some of his associates to obtain control of the CPR and then to invite Van Horne to return to it as president. In this capacity Van Horne would work with Ryan’s group to extend the CPR further into the United States and so secure for the railway a virtual monopoly of railway activity in North America.

When Ryan described this scenario, Van Horne was both startled and appalled. Then, regaining his composure, he told Ryan that his proposal made a mockery of everything the CPR stood for and that for him to participate in such a scheme would reek of the most vile treachery. Canadians, he curtly informed the financier, regarded the CPR as the backbone of their country, and they would go to any lengths to prevent it from falling under American control. Under no circumstances would he have anything to do with the proposal. This strong rebuff seems only to have impressed the American promoter more, and he immediately reversed his stand on the Cuba Company. He purchased shares in the newly formed company and supplied it with the important backing of the wealthy Morton Trust.

Although Van Horne located the Cuba Company’s head office in New York, he incorporated the company in New Jersey because its laws were well adapted to the multiplicity of purposes he had in mind for his new undertaking. He saw the building and operation of the railway as the first step in his plans for Cuba’s overall development. Just as the CPR had spawned a host of subsidiary enterprises, so would the Cuba Company. Should his dream be realized, the holding company would develop not only a pioneering railway but also resource-based industries, ports, hotels, telegraph lines, and town sites.

In assembling the management team for the new company, Van Horne, as president, assigned the second top spot to Percival Farquhar, the man who had conceived the idea of a railway to serve Cuba’s interior. His unflagging optimism, drive, creative spark, and presence made him the ideal choice to be Van Horne’s second-in-command and field commander. Moreover, his generous and mild temperament, the product of his Quaker upbringing, equipped him well for dealing with proud and sensitive Latin Americans.

Once the Cuba Company was established, Van Horne set off on still another trip to Cuba. In the years to come he would shuttle back and forth to the island two or three times a year. Sometimes he made the trip in the company of family members, such as Bennie, but usually he travelled with business or railway cronies he had persuaded to make the voyage. He also made countless visits each year to New York, where much of the Cuba Company’s business was conducted and its annual meetings were held. Most often he stayed at the Manhattan Hotel, where he would make himself accessible in the saloon during the evening to anyone who would drink innumerable tankards of German beer and listen to him talk about Japanese pottery, Dutch art, cattle breeding, bacon curing, Chinese script, the ideal planning of cities, and any other topic that interested him. He also mounted several missions to Washington to consult with Americans prominent in Cuban affairs and to lobby on behalf of his railway.

To make this railway a reality, an existing railway had to be purchased, surveys launched, and land acquired. Construction would come next. Van Horne argued that once the necessary authority was obtained to operate a railway and to cross rivers, roads, and other public property that lay between the Cuba Company’s parcels of land, very little would remain to be done. In other words, he hoped — and probably expected — that, as soon as an elected legislature had been established in Cuba to replace the U.S. military government, the railway would be so far advanced that no authority could or would want to kill it.

The Cuba Company’s first emissaries to Cuba were engineers and land surveyors who arrived in the spring of 1900. The results of their preliminary surveys inspired an enthusiastic report from the chief engineer, who remarked that the country through which the railway would pass was admirably adapted to agriculture. He cautioned, however, that labour would have to be imported as would most of the railway ties and bridge timber. Moreover, because of the prevalence of tropical diseases, notably malaria, hospitals would have to be maintained for the men. It was also likely that most of the water would have to be hauled or wells dug to supply it to the construction camps.

Within a few weeks, developments were unfolding so rapidly that Van Horne found himself busier than he had been in years. From both Montreal and Covenhoven he dispatched a steady stream of letters relating to his Cuban venture. In one letter to a friend he confessed, “The Cuban matter is the most interesting one that I have ever encountered and I am looking forward to a great deal of pleasure in carrying it through and perhaps profit as well — a few dozen Rembrandts and such things, which I think will quite fill my capacity for enjoyment.” As the undertaking gathered momentum, Van Horne resorted to his usual passion for detail. Just about everything came under his scrutiny, from the unexpected to the mundane. When one of the project’s engineers was taken fatally ill, he monitored the situation closely, instructing the attending physician to spare no expense and keeping the engineer’s wife up to date on all developments. Nothing escaped his attention. The treatment of railway ties, plans for wooden culverts, the disposition and care of three hundred mules — these were just a few of the day-to-day questions that utterly absorbed him.

When he was dealing with the Cubans, however, Van Horne recognized that their culture and way of life were markedly different from those in Canada, and he went to great lengths to assert the gentler, more sensitive side of his nature. Instead of his usual bluntness, he demonstrated a remarkable finesse and subtlety. To have done otherwise might well have imperilled the whole undertaking. Van Horne knew that, without land expropriation powers, he could not construct a railway unless the Cubans gave their blessing to the enterprise and were prepared to sell him land. He therefore became a model of courtesy and diplomacy in his dealings with the Cubans. When doing his rounds on the island, he always took his hat off when he met a Cuban, and when one of them bowed to him, he returned the bow twice. He also urged Cuba Company employees to show the same courtesy and consideration.

Van Horne made it abundantly clear to company officials that they must avoid any involvement with politics. The Cuba Company, he reminded them, was a strictly commercial enterprise. He was determined that it and its offspring, the Cuba Railroad, would adopt the CPR’s official policy of non-involvement in politics — one that had been compromised only occasionally. Still, non-involvement with politics did not rule out cultivating good relations with General Wood and his administration.

Although he steered clear of overt politicking, Van Horne nevertheless conducted his own public-relations campaign. Often this took the form of soothing letters to governors of provinces through which the railway would run. To assuage any potential fears about the scheme, the letters outlined the Cuba Company’s objectives and noted that its shareholders were both American and Canadian capitalists who had the greatest faith in Cuba’s future. Company plans included not only the building of a railway but also the development of timber resources, the promotion of sugar planting and other industries, and the encouragement of desirable immigrants.

In the early fall of 1900, grading and construction of the railway began at both the Santa Clara and the Santiago ends. It proceeded as rapidly as possible, using a labour force of up to six thousand men. For the most part, these men were well paid and assigned fair working hours. In the early months of construction, however, the majority of Cubans were suspicious of the Cuba Company’s intentions, regarding it and Van Horne as agents of the U.S. government. Soon, however, Van Horne’s method of conducting business in Cuba and the railway’s perceived benefits won over increasing numbers of Cubans to his enterprise. By January 1901, the Cuba Company and its railway undertaking had come to be regarded as a benign, if not positive, addition to the island scene. This good fortune was frequently offset, though, by problems in obtaining clear legal title to properties it acquired. Van Horne therefore recommended to General Wood that Cuba implement the Torrens land registration system then in use in Australia and in two western Canadian provinces. Invented by David Torrens, it is a system of land title whereby a state-maintained register of land holdings guarantees an indefeasible title to all the properties registered in it.

The Cuba Railroad in 1910.

Map by Vic Dohar.

Notwithstanding the relative ease with which the Cuba Company had obtained rights-of-way and land for stations, there was growing offshore opposition to Van Horne’s railway. This opposition originated principally in Washington, where the Cuba Relations Committee received many complaints about it. Some parties charged the Cuba Company with being a monopoly. Other legislators, who had been harassed by aggressive American promoters seeking railway franchises in Cuba, even tabled anti–Van Horne resolutions in the Senate. Most disquieting was a complaint against Van Horne that a New York lawyer forwarded to both the secretary of state and Senator Foraker accusing Van Horne of “flagrantly violating with audacious subterfuges” the Foraker Act and Cuban rights.

There is certainly no validity to the charge that Van Horne was violating Cuban rights. From the start, he sought to build a railway that would aid Cuba’s development without depriving Cubans of their territorial rights and independence. And this he succeeded in doing. But there is also no question that, in constructing a railway on private and federal land, Van Horne resorted to ingenious and audacious means to subvert the intent of the Foraker Act.

What was drastically needed was a clear and simple railway law that embodied the best features of Canadian and American railway laws. Van Horne therefore embarked on a self-appointed mission to convince General Wood of the need to substitute such a law for the Texas Railroad Law that Wood was intending to implement in Cuba — and here he succeeded, too. Accordingly, in the summer of 1900, Van Horne set to work on a railway law designed to govern the organization of Cuban railway companies and the building and operation of their lines. On his frequent visits to New York in these years, he and Farquhar often worked on the law at opposite ends of the large desk they shared in the company office at 80 Broadway.

To lobby for the adoption of this law, Van Horne set off in February 1901 for Washington, where he presented his case to various senators. Unfortunately, all his strenuous lobbying was to no avail. The politicians deeply involved in Cuban affairs were totally preoccupied with the friction that had developed between the American government and the Cuban delegates to the constitutional convention that met at Havana between November 5, 1900, and February 21, 1901.

Underlying the strained relations was a series of American demands on Cuba known collectively as the Platt Amendment. When the amendment was first submitted to the constitutional convention, it was defeated. However, because the U.S. military government would not evacuate from the island unless the amendment was passed, the convention delegates eventually swallowed their nationalist objections and incorporated it in the new constitution. Nine days later the constitution was adopted and, the following May, American troops withdrew from the island. In name, Cuba became an independent nation, though in fact it remained an American protectorate.

Van Horne’s railway law therefore did not come into force until February 1902, after it had undergone several revisions. In the final stages, Van Horne rarely saw the light of the Caribbean day as he and a phalanx of lawyers toiled away in Havana, putting the final touches to the legislation. The time was well spent, for the end result was a model law based largely on Canadian railway law. Before the law was implemented, however, Van Horne was forced to take extraordinary measures to overcome a series of obstacles. Fortunately, his inventive mind produced solutions that allowed railway construction to proceed.

In 1902 Van Horne and the Cuba Company faced a host of daunting challenges. Not the least of these was a glaring shortage of funds, triggered by delays in the delivery of rolling stock and soaring construction costs. Both were largely attributable to Van Horne’s insistence that railway equipment be the equal of those in general use by the best railways in the United States. Cars equivalent of those in general use in Cuba were not good enough. However, to satisfy such requirements, orders had to be placed with the few American manufacturers that could do the work. The inevitable delays threw many a kink into Van Horne’s timetable and produced cash shortages. Indeed, soaring costs swallowed up all the remaining funds for railway construction. In the financial crisis that followed, Van Horne had no choice but to turn to fundraising. He asked twenty-two shareholders to provide additional funding, but not all of them did so. The problem was only temporarily resolved when a British financier came to the rescue. Once the financial squeeze had passed, construction proceeded rapidly, only to be interrupted again by unusually severe spring rains that badly eroded clay embankments and cuttings.

Finally, on November 11, 1902, the task was done. Van Horne made a special visit to Cuba to witness the driving of the last spike on the Cuba Railroad’s main line. While there, he took a ride on the railway from Santa Clara to Santiago and then back to Ciego de Avila, where the company’s principal construction headquarters were then located. All along the line he was enthusiastically received. When he stopped at Puerto Principe, he was feted at a banquet in his honour. At Ciego de Avila he was greeted by practically the whole town, including seven hundred schoolchildren. Never able to resist an opportunity to be with children, he took time out the next day to visit their large school.

Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada, E002107474.

A locomotive employed by the Cuba Railroad.

The spate of public appearances and tributes did not stop there. Further recognition came from a local Spanish club, which entertained Van Horne and subsequently made him its first honorary member. The municipality of Puerto Principe (it adopted the native name Camaguey in 1903) also rose to the occasion. Before the year was out, it conferred on Van Horne the title “Adoptive Son of Camaguey” for all that he had done to encourage the city’s advancement and prosperity.” This honour was well merited because, on the city’s outskirts, Van Horne constructed a magnificent villa, San Zenon de Buenos Aires. Nearby he established a large experimental farm, emulating a large stockbreeding farm he had set up in East Selkirk, Manitoba.

The railway that was generating so much attention was now operated by a separate company, the Cuba Railroad Company, which was established in 1902. Despite an encouraging start, however, it faced challenges in raising funds for expansion and for the construction of sugar mills. From the beginning, Van Horne had envisaged the erection of sugar mills as part of his grand scheme for the development of that part of the island. With that in mind, he embarked on an exhaustive study of the sugar industry. But all his elaborately laid plans began to evaporate when the financial recession of 1903 intervened, drying up funds for both mill construction and the building of railway feeder lines. Only when the end of the recession freed up funding was he able to forge ahead with his ambitious program. In addition to mills and feeder lines, this plan included the construction of hotels, the establishment of a steamship service between Santiago de Cuba and Jamaica, the creation of an agricultural department within the Cuba Company, and the cultivation of extensive gardens on the grounds of each railway station. In time, the agricultural department carried out experiments on Cuban fibres and other products, issued bulletins, and corresponded with manufacturers who were potential buyers of these products.

As town sites sprouted alongside the railway’s main line, branch lines began to snake out into the undeveloped countryside. Repeated shortfalls of capital, however, played havoc with Van Horne’s plans to forge ahead steadily with branch-line construction. The cash shortage can be attributed partly to his lack of foresight, but that is not the entire explanation. In the post-1902 years other factors were also at work. One of these, of course, was the 1903 recession. Another was the insurrection that erupted against President Estrada Palma’s administration in 1906. This uprising scared away investors and precipitated a drought of investment capital.

Notwithstanding all the setbacks, by June 30, 1910, the railway boasted eight branches in addition to its main line. Included in the company’s rolling stock were sixty-five passenger cars, but as yet no dining cars. Until these arrived, passengers took their meals at picturesque little restaurants that had been designed under Van Horne’s supervision. Not surprisingly, he looked to Cuba’s rural architecture for his inspiration for these designs.

Towards the end of his life, Van Horne admitted that Cuba had involved him in far more work and worry than he could have imagined when he began the railway project there. Although the admission was painful, he also confessed that he had yet to reap any return on the large amount of money he had invested there between 1900 and 1909. Nevertheless, he took comfort in the realization that he had been of some use in “helping the people of that lovable island.”

As for the Cuba Company’s shareholders, they did not reap much in the way of returns before Van Horne’s death in 1915. Success would come only after the First World War destroyed the European sugar-beet industry, and the price of Cuban sugar skyrocketed from two cents a pound to twenty-three cents.