Bill boeing biography death

William Edward Boeing started his professional life as a lumberman and ended as a real-estate developer and horse breeder, but in between he founded the company that brought forth important breakthroughs in the field of aviation technology and the airline business. The Boeing Airplane Company became one of the signature corporations of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest and dominated the regional economy for most of the twentieth century.

He carried letters of introduction to German families in Detroit, but no money. After working on a farm, in a lumberyard, and in a hardware store, he was hired by Karl Ortmann, an important local lumberman from Vienna. Boing married Ortmann's daughter and, five years later, started his own business. He was soon selling land, timber, and iron ore at huge profits and providing extraordinarily well for his wife, Marie, and two children, William and Caroline.

Wilhelm Anglicized his name to William Boeing, built a stately home in Detroit's best neighborhood, acquired the city's finest library of German literature, and, in , helped fund Detroit's first art museum. While in New York on business, Wilhelm Boeing contracted influenza. He died during the long trainride back to Detroit.

William boeing net worth at death

His son, William, was 8 years old. Marie Boeing married a Virginia physician and left Detroit. Young William, who did not get along with his stepfather, was sent to several prestigious boarding schools, including the Sellig Brothers School in Vevey, Switzerland -- the same school New York financier J.