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"This is the Horatio Algeresque tale of Oris Paxton and Mantis James Van Sweringen, who rose from poverty to become two of the most powerful men in the country. They controlled the country's largest railroad system - a network of track reaching from the Atlantic to Salt Lake City and from Ontario to the Gulf of Mexico. They created the model upper-class suburb of Shaker Heights, Ohio, with its unique rapid-transit access. They built Cleveland's landmark Terminal Tower and its innovative "city within a city" complex. Indisputably, they created modern Cleveland."

"The Van Sweringen story begins in early-twentieth-century Cleveland suburban real estate and reaches its zenith in the heady late 1920s amid the turmoil of national transportation power politics and unprecedented empire-building. But as the Great Depression was destroying many of their fellow financiers, the "Vans" managed to survive through imaginative stubbornness - until tragedy ended their careers almost simultaneously. Invisible Giants is the first comprehensive biography of these two remarkable, if mysterious, men."--Jacket.

Businessmen > Ohio > Biography.

Real estate development > Ohio > Cleveland > History.

Railroads > Ohio > History.

Cleveland (Ohio) > History.