Henry Clay Payne (November 23, 1843 – October 4, 1904) was U.S. Postmaster General from 1902 until his death under President Theodore Roosevelt.

[1][2] He spent his youth in Massachusetts, and attempted to enlist for the Union Army, but he was rejected from service due to poor health.

[citation needed] In 1863, he moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he found work as a cashier in a dry goods merchant.

[2] Payne became a lobbyist for the railroad industry, described by long-time opponent Robert La Follette, Sr. as “the most effective railroad lobbyist I ever knew.” Starting in 1890 he helped Henry Villard acquire all the cars Milwaukee streetcar system for Villard's North American Company of New Jersey.

[2][6] In 1896, Payne refused to provide a one-cent-an-hour pay raise which had allegedly been promised to unionized TMER&L workers.

[7][5] He also engaged in real estate development, such as the 1897 "Payne's Park Addition" to North Milwaukee, fed by expanded streetcar lines running past what has been described as "two miles of vacant fields" and ending a few blocks past the street Payne had named after Villard in 1892.