Ira Yale Sage

Colonel Ira Yale Sage (1848 – 1908) was an American civil engineer, railroad magnate, promoter, and former United States Army officer in Georgia, who became President of the Atlanta and Florida Railway.

[2][3] Following the end of the American Civil War, he was the railroad engineer responsible for the construction of the tracks running from Atlanta to Washington D.C..[4] He also built the Sage Hill estate and became a member of the Social Register.

[7] Congressman Sage was a railroad magnate, business partner of robber barron Jay Gould during the Gilded Age, and among the richest men in the United States at the time, leaving a fortune of 70 million dollars in 1906, about the same as J.P. Morgan who died 7 years later.

Col. Sage possessed an early aptitude for mathematics, which allowed him to complete algebra and geometry at age 13, and calculus at 14, and after graduating from college, went on working as a civil engineer.

[10] Following the industrial boom in the South after the end of the American Civil War, he went to Atlanta, Georgia, in 1868, and became at age 22, the chief engineer of the Richmond and Danville Air Line.

They decided to build a railroad together, issuing $125,000 worth of stock on a total of $350,000 and Yale Sage was elected its president and chief engineer.

[15] Some of his work involved designing tunnels through mountains, making sure railroad grades were flat enough for locomotives to pull cars up or down them.

[10] In 1894, he built the 27 room "Sage Hill House" in Atlanta; the largest residence in DeKalb County, Georgia at the time.