In 1906 he won a $20 million contract to build 450 miles of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul line from the Montana-Idaho border across Snoqualmie Pass to Seattle, which was completed in 1909.

[4] Seventy-one years after its completion, the Pacific Extension was abandoned by the Milwaukee Road due to bankruptcy.

A tanker which supplied creosote from Europe to this plant was named the H.C. Henry and was sunk by a German submarine in World War I on September 28, 1915.

[10][11] For his personal contributions and efforts to collect funds for the Fatherless Children of France, a charity for wartime orphans, he was awarded the Legion of Honor medal in 1920.

This was swapped for a smaller parcel closer to the Broadway shopping district, to become the Susan J. Henry branch of the Seattle Public Library, named for his wife.