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(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
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Theodore was born on May 5, 1856 in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, United States, where members of the Shonts (or Shontz) family, coming from Lancaster County, had settled about 1800. As a boy he went with his parents to Appanoose County, Iowa, and there he grew to manhood. He was a son of Dr. Henry Daniels and Margaret Nevin (Marshall) Shonts.
Dependent on the district schools of a new country for his education, he was a schoolmaster himself at sixteen and then passed four years at Monmouth College, Monmouth, Ill. , where he was graduated in 1876. Later he studied in the office of Gen. Francis M. Drake.
Upon his return to Iowa, the distinction of his work as comptroller for an investment company at Centerville, Iowa, soon led to a demand for his services as accountant for banks in the state, but he had decided to be a lawyer and he was duly admitted to the bar and made a partner in the firm of Gen. Francis M. Drake. Drake, however, was an aggressive and successful organizer and builder of railroads and after a time he persuaded Shonts to give up the law as a profession for a railroad career.
The first challenge to the younger man's mettle came from the Iowa Construction Company, financed in the East, which made him responsible for building within ninety days 100 miles of road to connect with the Central Iowa Railway (later Iowa Central). Although fifty-one of the ninety days were rainy, the job was completed in the stipulated time, so that the rails could receive locomotives and trains.
His advance in railroading was rapid. He was general superintendent of the Indiana, Illinois & Iowa Railroad from 1882 to 1886, when he became general manager; from 1898 to 1902 he was also president. In time he succeeded to the presidency of the Chicago & Alton Railroad (1907 - 12), the Iowa Central Railway (1910 - 11), the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad (1909 - 11), and the Toledo, St. Louis & Western ("Clover Leaf") Railroad (1904 - 12).
In 1905, at the moment of beginning work on the Panama Canal, President Theodore Roosevelt was seeking a chairman for the second Isthmian Canal Commission. He was advised by his secretary of the navy, Paul Morton, that Shonts (of whom Roosevelt had never heard) had many of the qualities demanded by that position. An interview, in which Shonts made his acceptance conditional on his being given a free hand and absolute authority, convinced the President that he was the man for the place and the appointment was made.
Shonts acted on the assumption that full preparation must be made before the actual digging could be started. He did this work of preparation so thoroughly that when construction was begun, under other direction, it went forward with marvelous speed. Just what led Shonts to resign from the Canal Commission in 1907 may never be known.
He was committed to the contract system of construction and when Roosevelt decided against that procedure he may have thought it impossible to continue. He was at once made president of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (and of its parent company, the Interborough-Metropolitan) of New York City, where a consolidation of subway, elevated, and surface lines had just been effected.
Shonts died of pneumonia on September 21, 1919.
Theodore Perry Shonts was known for his work at Iowa Construction Company, when he was responsible for building of 100 miles of road to connect with the Central Iowa Railway and he made it in less then ninety days. At the moment of beginning work on the Panama Canal he was chairman for the second Isthmian Canal Commission, extremely difficult task, but under his supervision it went forward with marvelous speed.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
He was known in the Middle West among railroad men as an outstanding example of pluck and efficiency in management, an executive who could give and take hard knocks, who somehow succeeded most completely when the odds were against him.
In 1882 Shonts was married to Harriet Amelia Drake (called in his will Milla), daughter of his senior partner in the law firm.
