Nelson Ludington

Born in Ludingtonville, New York, he made his fortune in the Midwest based on resource exploitation: lumber, iron ore and copper.

He also had a branch and the main lumber yards in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but eventually based his namesake company in Chicago, Illinois, which became the boom town of the upper Midwest.

[1][5] Ludington's training for the business world started at a general store in Cold Spring, New York, a town located along the Hudson River.

He recognized that the rapid expansion of western towns around the Great Lakes would increase market demand for lumber, so he bought up large tracts of timber lands.

[12] His hired surveyor, Eli Parsons Royce, entered the name on the town design schematic, as he understood it from a local Indian.