Keith, Minor Cooper (1848–1929)

Minor Cooper Keith (b. 19 January 1848; d. 14 June 1929), Costa Rican railroad builder and founder of United Fruit Company. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Keith received only a grade-school education before beginning to work in the cattle business out west. In 1871 his uncle, Henry Meiggs, obtained and transferred the contract to build the Costa Rican railroad to Minor's elder brother, Henry Meiggs Keith. Henry Keith soon had Minor in Costa Rica working on the railroad, which quickly became Minor C. Keith's project. He completed the Costa Rican Railway on 7 December 1890.

Minor Keith encouraged banana production along the railroad line in order to have a return freight during the period before the railroad reached the Mesa Central. He used the Tropical Trading and Transport Company to control all the banana land in the early decades. Later he organized the Colombian Land Company, Limited, and the Snyder Banana Company as his fruit business expanded. He joined with Andrew W. Preston of Boston Fruit Company to form the United Fruit Company, incorporated in New Jersey on 30 March 1899. Preston became president and Keith first vice president, but Keith ceased any active role in the company by 1912. He had received $4 million in United Fruit shares for his various fruit operations when United Fruit organized.

On 31 October 1883, Keith married Cristina Castro Fernández, the daughter of José María Castro, who served twice as president and once as chief justice of Costa Rica, and Pacífica Fernández de Castro, who designed Costa Rica's flag and coat of arms. Minor and Cristina had no children.

Later in life, Keith pursued other interests. He collected and turned over to the Costa Rican National Museum (founded in 1887) many Costa Rican antiquities. About 1905, he acquired fruit lands in Guatemala for United Fruit and built the International Railroads of Central America by purchasing existing railroads and acquiring concessions for additional lines in Guatemala and El Salvador. He had interests in Brazilian railroads and Cuban sugar mills among his many and varied Latin American business holdings.

See alsoRailroads; United Fruit Company.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

John E. Findling, Dictionary of American Diplomatic History, 2d ed. (1989), p. 279.

J. Fred Rippy, "Relations of the United States and Costa Rica During the Guardia Era," Bulletin of the Pan American Union 77, no. 2 (1943): 61-68.

Watt Stewart, Keith and Costa Rica (1964).

Additional Bibliography

Chomsky, Aviva. West Indian Workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, 1870–1940. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996.

O'Brien, Thomas F. The Revolutionary Mission: American Enterprise in Latin America, 1900–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Quesada Monge, Rodrigo. Una lección de estilo empresarial: las inversiones de Keith en Costa Rica, 1885–1929. Heredia, Costa Rica: Departamento de Filosofía, Universidad Nacional, 2003.

Striffler, Steve, and Mark Moberg. Banana Wars: Powers, Production, and History in the Americas. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.

                         Thomas Schoonover