Artist: Othmar J. Hoffler (1893–1954)
Carl Raymond Gray Sr.
GRAY, CARL RAYMOND SR. (1867–1939), inducted 1937
Carl R. Gray began his fifty-six-year career in the railroad industry as a fifteen-year-old “sweeping boy” in a small-town train station and ended it as president and vice chairman of the Union Pacific Railroad. Born in Princeton, Arkansas, Gray served as president of the Great Northern Railway (1912–1914) and the Western Maryland Railway (1914–1919), before joining the Union Pacific. He supervised the nation’s railroads during World War I, under the US Railroad Administration, and he helped form the Association of American Railways in 1934. At the time of his death, he was serving as a special policy advisor to President Roosevelt—work that led to the Transportation Act of 1940. In 1920, Gray established an extensive Union Pacific scholarship program to students enrolling in agriculture schools in states served by the line.
Source: Saddle & Sirloin Guidebook 2026, p. 101