Charles Sanger Mellen (1852-1927) was an American railroad man whose career culminated in the presidencies of the Northern Pacific Railway 1897-1903 and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad 1903-1913. Mellen was born in Lowell, Mass. His family soon moved to Concord, N.H. where he attended high school.
Rather than attending college, he began his railroad career as a clerk at the Northern New Hampshire Railroad in Concord in 1870. After a short time at the Central Vermont Railroad and back to the Northern New Hampshire Railroad, he moved to the Boston and Lowell Railroad (B&L) where he was promoted to Superintendent.
In 1892, he became general manager of the New York and New England Railroad, during a time when it was engaged in a bitter war with the New Haven. Charles P. Clark, the New Haven's president, hired him away from his competitor in November 1892. Mellen later testified that "[Clark] said I was too much of a nuisance on the New England."
Mellen had an active role in the reorganization and became president of the NP when it emerged from receivership in 1896. During his tenure there, NP's gross revenue increased by 156%, some of the increase at the expense of the Great Northern Railroad (GN), part of the same supposedly anti-competitive Northern Securities Company as the NP.
Condition: Excellent
State: Washington
Year: 1899
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