Chester
Thorne
Male
United States of America
1863-11-11
Manhattan, New York, United States of America
1927-10-16
Pierce County, Washington, United States of America
His English ancestors came to America in 1648. He grew up comfortably in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., the son of Edwin Thorne, a wholesale leather broker who retired to his Millbrook, N.Y., estate, called Thorndale, and raised trotting horses.
Chester Thorne earned an engineering degree from Yale. He had the smarts to marry Anna Hoxie, niece of H.M. Hoxie, who ran the Missouri Pacific Railway Co.
In 1890, the Thornes moved to Tacoma. Chester invested in the National Bank of Commerce, survived a dreadful banking depression in 1893, and made tons of money by consolidating his bank with two others to form National Bank of Tacoma in 1913.
Thorne helped start the Port of Tacoma, organized Rainier National Park Co. at Mount Rainier, worked to develop the plan to donate prairie land for a military camp that became Fort Lewis, and built one other relic that bears his name.
Thornewood, a 31,000 square-foot, 40-room Tudor Gothic mansion on American Lake in Lakewood, was designed by Spokane architect Kirtland Cutter. Thornewood took four years and $1 million to build, is adorned by gardens designed by the Olmsted brothers of Boston, and survives as one of the Northwest's legendary residences.
Thorne tended his finances, played golf and died at age 63 in 1927. His daughter Anita had the great fortune to marry someone named Cadwallader Colden Corse, who lost his right eye in a shooting incident at Thornewood three weeks after Chester Thorne's death.
1895 - 1895
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Preliminary Round
Charles Power 1 *
Chester Thorne
w.o.