Manuscripts Collection
Louis W. Menk was born April 8, 1918, the son of Louis A. Menk, a Union Pacific brakeman, and Daisy Deane (Frantz) Menk, a schoolteacher. He grew up in the Denver suburb of Englewood, Colorado, and attended the University of Denver for about two years while working nights as a Union Pacific messenger.
Menk left college in 1940 to take a job as a telegrapher in Tulsa, Oklahoma with the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway (Frisco). For the next 25 years he rose steadily through the Operation Department ranks of the Frisco: train dispatcher (Tulsa), assistant trainmaster (Tulsa and Newburg, Mo.), trainmaster (Thayer, Mo.), assistant superintendent (Chaffee and Newburg, Mo.), terminal trainmaster (Memphis, Tenn.), and superintendent (Fort Smith, Ark., Memphis, and Tulsa). From 1953 to 1960 he was stationed at regional headquarters in Springfield, Missouri, where he rose to regional vice-president of the company. He was later transferred to corporate headquarters in St. Louis where he served as vice president-operation (1960-1962), president (1962-1965), and chairman (1964-1965).
During his Frisco presidency he was generally credited with
modernizing the company�s management and with increasing its operating
efficiency and earnings. His success led to his 1965 recruitment by the
Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (Burlington)�a company more than
double the Frisco�s size�to succeed outgoing president Harry Murphy. During
his year in Chicago as Burlington president, the company�s earnings increased
over 100 percent, resulting in his October 1966 election to the presidency of
the Northern Pacific Railway (NP), one of the Burlington�s parent companies.
His railroading success attracted national attention and he was named 1966
�Railroad Man of the Year� by
In 1967 he was made chief executive officer of the NP, and for the next three years he worked to secure the long-sought merger of the NP, the Great Northern Railway, the Burlington, and the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway. On March 1, 1970 the merged entity, renamed Burlington Northern Inc. (BN), was formally established and Menk was elected its first president. In 1971 he was elected chief executive officer and chairman of the board, and in 1978 he resigned his chief executive post to pursue the chairmanship full time.
BN reorganized itself in 1981 as a holding company controlling the assets of eight separate operating companies, and during that year Menk retired from the corporation�s chairmanship. In 1982 he was elected chairman and chief executive officer of the International Harvester Company. At the end of that he relinquished the CEO responsibilities while retaining the chairmanship. Menk retired as chairman in August, 1983.
Menk was active throughout his career in rail industry organizations, and served as a director of the Association of American Railroads and the Transportation Association of America. He also served as a director of about a dozen other business corporations in a variety of industries. He has been active in chamber of commerce activities in various locales, in United Way and Community Chest drives, and in other community business and social service activities. He was long active in the Boy Scouts of America, serving in various executive capacities with national and regional scouting organizations. Menk also served on the boards of trustees of several colleges and universities, and was especially active on that of his alma mater, the University of Denver.
Menk was married in 1942 to Martha Jane Swan of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and has two children: David Louis Menk and Barbara Ann (Menk) Ambrose.
The papers provide information on Menk's relationships with other national business leaders in a variety of industries; his business and economic values, especially regarding business-government relationships; the conduct of large-scale corporate affairs in the post-World War II period; the railroad enterprises Menk directed; his memberships on corporate boards of directors, college and university boards of trustees, and in golf and social clubs; his daily business and social schedule; and miscellaneous personal finances.
These documents are organized into the following sections:
Northern Pacific Railway Company. President's records, 1872-1970 are in the Minnesota Historical Society manuscripts collections.
A print version of this finding aid is available in the repository; filed in ALPHA notebooks under the heading: Menk, Louis Wilson.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should
Until ten years after the death of Menk and his wife, access to the papers requires written permission. Contact the reference staff for more information.
Accession number: 13,034; 13,081
Processed by: Dennis Meissner, March 1983
Catalog ID number: 09-00023407
This series consists primarily of general chronologically arranged personal and social correspondence, largely letters between Menk and his friends and associates. Most of the correspondents are railroad officials or business executives in other industries. The correspondence includes exchanges of thanks for courtesies extended on trips, especially business-related trips; exchanges of pleasantries and personal and family information; sharing printed matter and other information with business leaders; arranging entertainments and outings; and requests for contributions from educational, charitable, and business organizations. The papers bulk from the 1970-1978 period, but a few folders of general correspondence date from the 1965-1967 period, with scattered items from 1958 and 1963.
Frequent correspondents include Malcolm S. Forbes (publisher of Forbes magazine), Clark M. Clifford (Washington, D.C. attorney and U.S. Secretary of Defense, 1968-1969), Stephen Ailes (president, Association of American Railroads), Charles M. Pigott (president, Pacific Car and Foundry Co.), Thomas L. Judge (governor of Montana), Thomas A. Murphy (chairman, General Motors), John H. Myers (president, Hoerner-Waldorf and St. Paul Chamber of Commerce), Charles H. Bell (retired chairman, General Mills, Inc.), Ronald M. Hubbs (president/chairman, St. Paul Companies, Inc.), and George L. Green (executive vice president, Pullman, Inc.).
In addition to the general files are several files of
correspondence on a number of special topics. Among the more substantive files
are those containing congratulatory correspondence following Menk�s election
to the NP presidency and the BN chairmanship, Menk family vacations (largely
arrangements with the Rancho de los Caballeros, Wickenburg, Ariz.), hunting and
fishing trips, the deaths and estates of Menk�s parents, and Menk�s
publication of the book
This series contains correspondence and related papers, typed and printed copies of Menk�s speeches, and miscellaneous publicity materials largely generated by Menk�s speaking appearances.
The correspondence files include arrangements for speaking engagements, correspondence with public relations staff members and speechwriters, copies of speech drafts, congratulations on speeches, and requests for copies of speech texts. The speech copies (apart from a folder of printed speeches) are typed copies annotated in Menk�s hand. They are organized chronologically in three-ring binders. The publicity files consist largely of press releases and clippings regarding Menk�s speeches.
The speeches were presented to a variety of transportation industry, business, civic, and social groups and largely reflect Menk�s position on such transportation-related issues as freight rates, the Interstate Commerce Commission and other aspects of government regulation of business, and the role and performance of railroads within the changing transportation industry. Other fairly common topics include the social responsibilities of American business, free enterprise and business-government relationships, and the attitudes of American youth toward business enterprise.
Frequent audiences were shippers� groups, BN stockholders, traffic clubs, affiliates of the Association of American Railroads, Chambers of Commerce, rotary clubs, business school and commencement classes, Boy Scouts of America groups, and United Way organizations and related groups.
The Membership Files contain information on Menk�s memberships on corporate boards of directors, on college and university boards of trustees, in private recreation and social clubs, and on various civic and public service boards and committees.
The corporate board files include correspondence and printed matter containing information on board meetings, information on new products and services being introduced, and occasional analytical reports by independent securities analysts. A frequent correspondent is Gaylord Freeman, chairman of the First National Bank of Chicago.
The files documenting Menk�s service on college and university boards of trustees include information on board meetings and data on pledge campaigns and other funding efforts. While several institutions are represented, the bulk of the files concern Menk�s extensive work with the University of Denver. A special group of files documents the work of the Denver Design Campaign, a systematic three-year drive, over which Menk presided as national chairman, to secure a $50 Million capital investment for the university. Maurice B. Mitchell, University of Denver chancellor, is a significant correspondent.
The club files are dominated by golf clubs, reflecting the sport�s importance to Menk. There are general files on miscellaneous golf and social clubs, as well as individual files on particular clubs of which Menk was a more active member. The general files contain a good deal of miscellaneous correspondence and printeds from the variety of clubs to which Menk belonged or by which his membership was solicited. Individual club files contain correspondence with club staff and fellow members, notices and reports from club management, and Menk�s expense records. The golf files contain a good deal of correspondence with friends and business associates regarding setting up golf dates. Frequent correspondents in the golf files are Jackson T. Stephens (chairman, Stephens, Inc., Little Rock, Ark.), Stephen Ailes, and Clark Clifford.
The remaining membership files document Menk�s participation on a variety of ad hoc committees and nonprofit institutions. Of special significance are the files documenting his service as 1976 executive in residence at the University of Colorado�s business school, for which he gave several lectures on transportation management and American business (included are his presentations and correspondence).
75th anniversary celebration organized by St. Paul Chamber of Commerce.
This series of correspondence and printed matter consists of invitations extended to Menk from a variety of organizations and individuals. They include invitations to participate in or sponsor business conferences, seminars, and dinners (largely from railroad and shippers� groups); invitations to special trade shows and demonstrations; invitations to social and recreational outings extended to himself and to his family by friends and business associates; attempts to secure his participation in special events and funding drives for civic, charitable, and educational organizations; and invitations to state and national government and political briefings, meetings, and social events (especially foreign trade matters).
Among the correspondents who figure prominently in these files are Curtis L. Carlson (Carlson Companies) and David M. Lilly (chairman, Toro Co., Mpls.).
This series of correspondence documents Menk�s receipt of Christmas season gifts, as well as his gifts to others. The correspondence consists mostly of letters from Menk thanking others for their gifts, as well as occasional letters thanking Menk for his. The gifts received by Menk were largely product samples sent by their producers, especially companies on whose boards Menk sat; personal gifts from friends, primarily business associates; and gifts from firms seeking NP or BN business. Most of each year�s correspondence is in alphabetical order by gift sender or recipient.
The scheduling files consist of three related groups of papers documenting the allocation of Menk�s time over a 20-year period. The first group is typed copies of his itineraries (1972-1978) documenting his travels and including notations of flight bookings, hotel and restaurant reservations, meeting times and places, and social and business appointments.
Following the itineraries are Menk�s personal desk calendars (1961-1966) and desk diaries (1967-1980), which detail his schedule on a daily basis. The third group of materials are the desk diaries of Menk�s executive assistant John L. Garrity, whose own diaries provide a good deal of useful information on the number and variety of tasks he performed on Menk�s behalf, thereby fleshing out the office workflow information one gathers from Menk�s own diaries.
The financial files are composed of several miscellaneous series of financial papers on a variety of subjects and from various time periods. The first group of files are Menk�s expense account reports (1957-1977) consisting of usually monthly reports of reimbursable expenses. The 1966-1970 files consist not of formal reports, but of Menk�s original expense memorandum books.
The second series consists of stock transfer files (1967-1971), which document Menk�s stock purchases and sales over a four-year period. The papers include financial statements and correspondence with securities brokers.
A third series (1965-1978) consists of correspondence and financial statements recording transfers of funds from Menk�s savings account in the First National Bank of Chicago to his checking account in the same bank.
A fourth series (1974-1979) documents the operation of the Menk Charitable Trust, a trust fund established to dispense charitable donations from a fund derived from a segment of Menk�s securities income. The files contain correspondence with organizations soliciting donations and records of the donations actually made.
A fifth series consists of medical expense records (1961-1965) of the Menk family during his last several years at the Frisco. A final group consists of two volumes of memoranda of miscellaneous personal accounts (1960-1966), all of which are quite incomplete. The memoranda include notations of director�s fees received from various corporations, insurance in force, real property investments, certificates in safe deposit boxes, trust funds for his children, and personal savings account data.
Included are a mixed group of original and photocopied certificates and awards (1953-1981) received by Menk from business organizations, educational institutions, and government agencies in recognition of a variety of personal achievements and public service activities. There are also individual files of correspondence and related papers documenting Menk�s receipt of three other awards: the 1978 Horatio Alger Award, the 1972 St. Paul Jaycees �Boss of the Year Award,� and the 1980 B�nai B�rith Youth Services �Corporate Man of the Year Award."
Eighteen personal scrapbooks compiled by Menk. The scrapbooks document Menk's career from 1940 until he became chairman of International Harvester in 1982, although they concentrate on the 1963-1981 period. They consist largely of newspaper and magazine clippings and photographs, along with a variety of other personal memorabilia, including certificates, cards and letters, event programs, advertisements, and press releases.
The scrapbooks document Menk's promotions, major speeches and appearances, work as a leader in the United States rail industry (including many media interviews concerning transportation regulation), service on various corporate and organizational boards, civic and social activities (especially the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce and the Boy Scouts of America), national public service activities (especially presidential panels), and honors and awards. They also reflect general concerns and activities of the U.S. rail industry and provide information on the 1970 merger that created Burlington Northern Inc.
Congratulatory cards, letters, and telegrams, as well as Menk's acknowledgments.
Additional earlier clippings that had not been integrated into the earlier scrapbook volumes that appear on the first reel.