Henry Failing (January 17, 1834 – November 8, 1898) was a banker, and one of the leading businessmen of the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

[3] He then became the junior bookkeeper for Eno, Mahoney & Co., one of the largest wholesale dry goods houses in the city, a few years later.

[5] His first term accomplishments included forecasting budget revenues, codifying city ordinances, financing gas street lamps, funding the removal of snags from the Willamette River,[5] and sewer planning.

[5] Failing was criticized for his response to the fire, but public opposition to several of his ordinances was considered the reason for his loss to J.

[5] After retiring from professional politics,[1] Failing was appointed to Portland's water committee in 1886, and later served as its chairman.

[1] Failing maintained an interest in other business enterprises, and held valuable real estate both in and on the outskirts of Portland.

[7] The new business Corbett, Failing & Co.[1] turned exclusively to wholesale merchandizing,[1] and became the largest of its kind in the northwest.

[8] Failing was elected a director of Oregon Railway and Navigation Company (ORNC) in June 1888, along with Corbett, Henry Villard, Christopher Meyer, John Hubert Hall, Sidney Dillon, Charles S. Colby, Colgate Hoyt, C. H. Lewis, W. S. Ladd, Cyrus A. Dolph, William H. Holcomb, and S. B.

[9] The elections were understood to signal no change at ORNC, underscoring their intent to extend the Farmington Line to the Coeur D'Alene Mines, and were viewed as a defeat of Villard and his initiative to jointly lease property of the Northern Pacific and the Union Pacific.

[9] Both houses of the Oregon Legislative Assembly endorsed Failing to succeed William Windom as the United States Secretary of the Treasury in 1891.

Failing served as a regent of the University of Oregon, a trustee and treasurer of Pacific University, president (and benefactor) of the Portland Library Association, treasurer of the Portland Children's Home, and a founder of River View Cemetery.