The founder and owner of the W.T. Van Dorn Company, as well as the inventor of the Van Dorn coupler, was William Tolbert Van Dorn. He was born in LaPorte, Indiana on September 26, 1843 and lived in Miami County, Indiana until he went west sometime around 1864. He went to work for the Union Pacific Railroad in 1867 and worked for the UP until 1872. He lived in Ogden, Utah until 1880, when he moved to Lincoln, Nebraska. He had three children: Edith, born 1885; Herbert, born 1887; and William, born 1891. He died on November 29, 1918 at the age of 75 following an automobile accident.
Included in the collection of Van Dorn company items that was donated to IRM by Larry Larson were a few documents relating to William Van Dorn's life. First was something of an autobiography he wrote about his life prior to moving to Lincoln, Nebraska in 1880:
There is also an account written about 1910 by W.T. Van Dorn about the history behind Van Dorn Park. This piece of park land still exists - link - map
THE ROMANCE OF A PIONEER.
W.T. VAN DORN HAD AN INTERESTING CAREER.
Helped to Build the Union Pacific Railroad and Invented Himself Into a Fortune.
W.T. Van Dorn, a pioneer of Lincoln, Nebr. died in Chicago on Friday as the result of an automobile accident two weeks ago. He will be buried in Wyuka cemetery in this city on Tuesday next at an hour which will be announced later.
Mr. Van Dorn had an interesting career. About thirty years ago he came to The Journal office with a model of a new automatic coupler for railroad cars which he was sure would make his fortune. About five years ago he came to The Journal again, and showed to the same member of the staff his latest invention, a corrugated steel end for railroad box cars. The first invention, the Van Dorn coupler, had made him wealthy. The steel box car end was certain to result in the building of a great industry. It was halted by the war, but the future of this invention seems to be as safe as that of the coupler.
Fifty-one years ago a young man on an Indiana farm, fired by stories of gold discoveries in the west, threw down his tools, and financed by his father, started for Virginia City, Mont. Six years later he became a resident of Lincoln. For twenty-five years he lived in this city; then he removed to Chicago. In Chicago, less than 200 miles from the farm where he spent the early years of his life, his fortune was made through the car coupler that he invented while a resident of Lincoln.
The man was W.T. Van Dorn. Older citizens of Lincoln will remember him as a very active, but quiet and unassuming man. Van Dorn Street, on the extreme south, was named after him.
Mr. Van Dorn was a good many years reaching Montana, and the gold mine he set out to find yet remains undiscovered. When he left Logansport, Indiana, with two middle-aged men, his father gave him a yoke of cattle, a good wagon and provisions enough to last a year. These were shipped by rail to Quincy, from which the party ferried the Mississippi. Then began the long trek across Missouri and Iowa. The party crossed the Missouri river at Nebraska City and joined with an emmigrant train for Denver, by way of Old Fort Kearney. At that time there were but a few persons and no town on the present site of Lincoln. The men were here boiling salt, and when the party crossed the Salt they heard of the big salt basin twelve miles to the south.
The Indians were on the war path that year, and the party was halted at Denver. They arrived there on the 25th of June. There were no houses on the present site of Denver, except a few sod structures and tents located west of Cherry creek. The Indianians spent the summer prospecting in the Rockies, and came near freezing to death when they essayed the return trip.
In 1865 the first locomotive and cars came up the Missouri on a steamboat from St. Joseph, and the construction of the Union Pacific began. Mr. Van Dorn entered the service of the road in the car department, and very soon after was sent west with the construction gang. He was at the west end until the road was completed. Most of the time was at Wasatch Mountains. So great was the haste to finish the road that the officials did not wait for the permanent right of way tunnels and high grades, but constructed five switch backs, which reached the bottom of Echo canyon, and from there the line was extended to Promontory Point [sic], seventy-five miles west of Ogden. It was here that the golden spike was driven by Oakes Ames, president of the Union Pacific, and Leland Stanford, president of the Southern Pacific [sic].
The dramatic incident in the western railroad building was vividly recalled by Mr. Van Dorn. The golden spike was removed very soon and a steel spike inserted in its place. Everbody who was present and many who were not insisted upon a piece of the "last tie" as a souvenir, and it had to be replaced many times before the demand was met. Mr Van Dorn remained with the company for three years and then entered business for himself.
His various trips across the plains familiarized him with the Nebraska country, and he felt certain that it would soon be well peopled. Lincoln had meanwhile been born and its location convinced him that in time it would be a great commercial center, knowing as he did the conditions of the surrounding country. In 1870 he came to Lincoln by way of the stage coach from Nebraska City, a means of transportation that brought most of the Lincoln pioneers. At the time the Burlington had reached Ashland.
Mr. Van Dorn spent a week or ten days looking over different locations and ended by buying ten acres lying on the hill south of the city and just south of the present Van Dorn street. He immediately began to improve it. Later he bought forty acres, known as Van Dorn Park.
Through this purchase his name is permanently connected with the city of Lincoln in Van Dorn Street, Van Dorn Park and the Van Dorn pumping station.
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And there is this obituary, which appeared in Electric Railway Journal and does a better job of describing Van Dorn's significance in the traction field:
William T. Van Dorn, inventor, and founder of the Van Dorn Coupler Company, died at his home in Chicago, on Nov. 29, at the age of seventy-five years. It is believed that an automobile accident on Nov. 17 in which Mr. Van Dorn was injured was directly responsible for his death. Mr. Van Dorn was very well known in the electric railway field. Early in life he became a student of mechanics and while employed in the mechanical department of the earlier steam railroads gave a great deal of attention to the design of car couplers, and it is a matter of record that he was one of the originators of the coupler head which since has been made the M.C.B. standard. When the electric railways were first talked of Mr. Van Dorn had a vision of the future in store for the electric railway car. In 1885 he moved to Chicago, organized the Van Dorn Coupler Company and started manufacturing the Van Dorn coupler. Up to the time of his death Mr. Van Dorn was in active charge of the coupler business. During his life he was granted many patents on new car coupler ideas, and only recently he announced the perfection of a coupler which not only automatically connects cars mechanically but also connects the air and electric lines by the same operation. He also was the inventor of a steel end for freight cars and of a sub-floor for refrigerator cars which are in great demand. Herbert E. Van Dorn, oldest son, who in recent years has been closely associated with the business of the Van Dorn Coupler Company, will succeed his father as active head of the company.
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