Carl Raymond Gray was an American railroad executive in the early 20th century.
Background
Gray was born on September 28, 1867, in Princeton, Arkansas, the son of Oliver Crosby and Virginia La Fayette (Davis) Gray. He was the second of three children, the oldest of whom died in infancy. On his father's side he was descended from Robert Gray who came to Massachusetts from England in 1654; his mother's ancestors included William Bradford and several other settlers of Plymouth. Both his parents were natives of Maine. They had moved shortly before the Civil War to Princeton, Arkansas, where Oliver Gray became head of a military school, serving subsequently as a colonel in the Confederate Army. During Carl's boyhood his father was professor of mathematics at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Education
As the boy, Gray lived near the St. Louis and San Francisco (Frisco) Railroad station, and was fascinated by the trains and the switching of cars. His eagerness attracted the attention of the station agent, who taught him telegraphy. He completed a preparatory course at the university and went to work. The University of Maryland awarded him an honorary LL. D. in 1916, as did the University of Arkansas in 1929 and Washington and Jefferson College and Sioux Falls College in 1937.
Career
Gray went to work for the Frisco in March 1883 as a helper, and in a year was station agent and operator at Rogers, Arkansas, then agent and operator at Oswego, Kansas, until 1886. From March 1886 to April 1887 he was a clerk in the traffic department at Wichita, Kansas, and from then until July 1890 commercial agent at Wichita. After seven years as district and division freight agent he became division superintendent at Neodesha, Kansas, on October 17, 1897. He was now thirty years old and well grounded in railway traffic and operation. In the next twelve years Gray advanced to superintendent of transportation, general manager, second vice-president, and (1909) senior vice-president of the Frisco railway system. He left the Frisco in 1911 to become president of the Spokane, Portland, and Seattle Railway, jointly owned by the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railways, and next year was elected president of the Great Northern. From 1914 to the end of 1919 he headed the Western Maryland at Baltimore. On leave from this post from December 1917 to January 1919, he served in Washington as director of operations of the federal Railroad Administration, which took over virtually all of the rail properties in the country during World War I, a key position which enabled him to become well acquainted with the various railroads and their operating personnel. The rest of his life was spent in the service of the Union Pacific Railroad, which he joined as president on January 1, 1920, becoming vice-chairman of the board in October 1937. Under his expert management the Union Pacific was one of the few railroads to pay dividends on common stock during the depression and one of the pioneers in the introduction of streamlined, diesel-powered passenger trains. The great prestige he attained through his long experience, especially in his handling of the railroads during World War I and his presidency of the Union Pacific, made it natural that Gray should take a leading part in matters of national railway policy after 1920. Perhaps more than any other man he was responsible for the creation of the Western Association of Railway Executives, in December 1932, and its unique plan for composing differences through the medium of a commissioner. He was one of a small number who took the responsibility of organizing the Association of American Railroads in 1934, a body representing all the larger American railroads in such common concerns as the handling of car service, statistical records, accounting procedure, operating rules, maintenance practices, and proposals for federal legislation. Gray was one of the principal railroad presidents to participate in the conferences which led to the revision of the labor provisions of the Transportation Act of 1920, following the 1922 strike of the railroad shop men. In 1938 he was one of the so-called "committee of six" appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to submit recommendations on the general transportation situation, recommendations which led to the Transportation Act of 1940. He died in Washington on May 9, 1939, of heart disease, while acting in an advisory capacity to the Roosevelt administration, having just completed, with Daniel Willard, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, a memorandum on the best way to handle railway transportation in the event of a second World War. He was buried in the family plot in Baltimore, Maryland.
Achievements
Gray is best remembered as President of the Union Pacific Railroad (1920-1937). Under his expert management the Union Pacific was one of the few railroads to pay dividends on common stock during the depression and one of the pioneers in the introduction of streamlined, diesel-powered passenger trains.
Membership
President of the Great Northern Railway (1912-1914); President of the Western Maryland Railway (1914-1919); President of the Union Pacific Railroad (1920-1937)
Personality
Carl Gray was an unusually handsome and impressive man. His robust figure stood above six feet, and his strong, kindly face was given an added touch of benevolence by a fine head of wavy hair turned prematurely gray in his middle forties. He was fond of companionship and was a master story teller.
Connections
Gray was survived by his wife, formerly Harriette Flora of Oswego, Kansas, whom he had married in 1886 when he was nineteen and she was seventeen. Of their three sons, Carl Raymond, Jr. , and Russell Davis followed their father into railway work, while the third, Howard Kramer, became a surgeon at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.
