Trio

When Railroad Juggler Robert R. Young started to unload his Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad stock early this year, a Chicago trio began to buy up his holdings. By last week, Young was out and the trio had gobbled up 25% of Rock Island stock, one of the largest single holdings of any major railroad in the U.S.

Chicagoans had heard much about two of the three, multimillionaire Grain Merchant James Norris, owner of Detroit's Red Wing hockey team, and Charles Deere Wiman, president of the century-old John Deere Plow Co. and brother of Theatrical Producer Dwight Deere Wiman. Virtually unknown was spruce Henry Crown, 53, who took his place (with Norris) on the Rock Island's executive board last week, and began to help run the railroad.

But Chicagoans are surrounded by lots of evidence of the work of Colonel Crown (World War II Army engineers). His Material Service Corp., biggest building-supply firm in the Midwest, did $33 million in sales last year and helped put up many a Chicago building. He also buys them ready-built and is one of the chief backers of Hotelman Conrad Hilton. Crown put up some of the money for Hilton to buy Chicago's Palmer House. When Connie Hilton bought Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria (TIME, Oct. 17), Crown chipped in $250,000. Today he owns 8.7% (150,000 shares) of Hilton Corp. stock, the biggest share except for Hilton's.

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