John Henry Hammond, a civil engineer, railroad organizer, and land speculator, was the first person to purchase, clear and plat land in the area later known as West Superior, Wisconsin, and the single most influential individual in its development as an urban commercial center. The son of Henry and Rachel Orr Hammond, John Henry Hammond was born in 1833 in New York City. At a young age his father died, and the family moved to Campbell County, Kentucky. Hammond was educated in Bethany, Virginia. From approximately 1847 to 1851 he attended Jesuit College in Cincinnati where he studied civil engineering. Hammond travelled extensively after leaving college at the age of eighteen. He worked in New York for two years, returned to the family farm for another year, then went to Clinton, Iowa from October of 1854 to 1857. That year he went to Europe intending to work for a number of wine growers and to complete his education but returned after a year due to the death of his mother. From there he travelled west to California. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Hammond returned to Kentucky to enlist. By Decmber of 1861 he achieved the rank of adjutant general and chief of staff to General W.T. Sherman. In 1864 Hammond married Sophia Wolfe of Louisville, Kentucky.
At the close of the war, Hammond settled at Chillicothe, Missouri, where he became president of the Chillicothe 8 Brunswick Railroad. Soon after he organized the St. Louis, Council Bluff, 8 Omaha Railroad. Hammond remained president of the two companies until 1874 when ill health induced him to seek a northern climate. From 1875 to 1882 he lived in Evanston, Illinois, becoming president of a bank and an inspector for the Department of the Interior. Official duties frequently took Hammond through the Upper Midwest and North Dakota, prompting him to conclude that the area around Duluth-Superior, at the head of the Great Lakes, was ripe for settlement and economic growth.
With this potential for development in mind, in 1879 Hammond began to purchase substantial quantities of land across the bay from Duluth and two miles west of Old Superior, a territory later known as West Superior. In 1882 Hammond moved to St. Paul, Minnesota. From there he persuaded nine other investors to join him in a plan to purchase 100,000 dollars worth of additional land. To place the venture on more solid footing and to expand operations, Hammond decided to form a company to purchase, clear, plat, improve and promote a new townsite. One year later the Land and River Improvement Company (LRIC), the area's largest real estate, investment and development firm, was incorporated under the laws of New Jersey. Robert Belknap served as president with Hammond as general manager. Belknap was later succeeded by Roland Wemyss. By 1884 the company had obtained over 4,000 acres of land and devised a plan for West Superior's streets. The first town plat was officially filed in February 1885. Hammond was authorized to donate residential lots to settlers willing to build homes on them. From the late 1880s to the depression of 1893, the Improvement Company floated numerous large-scale investment and construction projects which were critical to the establishment of West Superior as a commercial and industrial center. Hammond's efforts to attract railroads to West Superior also played a key role in its economic development. In 1883 he formed the Lake Superior Terminal and Transit Railway Company which constructed a beltline around the city with spur connections to all the properties along the harbor. Every railroad which entered the city gained access to lakefront industries at the same time that businesses were assured of rail service regardless of their location. The Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway, which Hammond formed in 1888, furnished a direct route to eastern markets, avoiding both Chicago and the problem of lake shipping during wintertime.
Hammond died in St. Paul of a heart ailment on April 30, 1890.
