Lucius Pond Ordway

Lucius Pond Ordway (born January 21, 1862, Brooklyn, New York; died January 10, 1948, St. Paul, Minnesota) was an American businessman prominent in St. Paul whose investments and leadership helped create the modern 3M corporation.

Ordway was the son of Aaron Lucius Ordway (1822-1903), a teacher from a family long settled in and near Essex County, Massachusetts, and Frances Ellen Hanson (1831-1873). His uncle John Pond Ordway (1824-1880) was a well-known composer and music publisher of the Civil War era. ("Pond" was the maiden name of their grandmother, Catherine Pond Ordway (1787-1851).) His brother Samuel Hanson Ordway (1860-1935?) graduated from Brown University and Harvard Law School and became a prominent New York City lawyer. Lucius graduated from Brown in 1883 and went west to St. Paul, Minnesota to find work. He became a salesman for the firm of Wilson and Rogers, which sold tools and plumbing supplies.

By 1892 he had become a partner in the firm and then bought out his remaining partner, Charles Rogers. In 1893 he merged the firm with some of the Minneapolis manufacturing interests of Richard Teller Crane to create Crane & Ordway. By 1897 they were the leading manufacturer of steam engine parts in the region.

Ordway had become a wealthy man and he made several outside investments. In 1908 he bought property in St. Paul and constructed The Saint Paul Hotel, opened with much fanfare in 1910. But his most significant investment was the money that he put into the infant and seemingly ill-fated Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, now known as 3M. From 1904 to 1906 Ordway sunk more than $200,000 in the floundering enterprise and then became the company president from 1906 to 1910. In 1910 he moved the company's headquarters to St. Paul and built a new sandpaper plant there where he could watch over his investment. The company started to turn a profit during World War I and Ordway's share of the company became the source of a considerable family fortune. By the 1930s Ordway owned a villa in Palm Beach, Florida designed by fashionable architect Maurice Fatio.

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