George Higginson (1864-1936)

He was born at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. After graduating from Harvard (1887) he worked in the railroad business at Memphis and Kansas City. In 1892, he relocated to Chicago to work for the West Side Elevated Railway Co. and in 1894 moved to the suburb of Winnetka. In 1902, he became the Chicago representative of Stone & Webster, a Boston company that built power plants and offered financial advice. From 1904 until his retirement in 1924, George was the largest landowner in Winnetka. He was a member of the Winnetka village board, a senior warden of Winnetka's Christ Church, and in 1909 founded the Winnetka State Bank. On retiring in 1924, he moved back to his native Lenox, Massachusetts, where he lived at "The Ledge." In 1891, he married Edith Griswold, but she died just five years later, as did their only son and his only sister in Chicago's Iroquois Theater fire (1903). In 1898, he married Emily Wakem and they had 3-children.