Leonard Shoen: Founder of U-Haul

Discharged from the Navy in the summer of 1945, 29-year-old Leonard Samuel "Sam" Shoen and his wife Anna Mary tried to rent a utility trailer to move their possessions from Los Angeles to Portland and found they couldn’t move more than what could fit in their own car.

The Shoens saw a need to enable families in a post-World War II economy to relocate on their own. He launched U-Haul in the summer of 1945 with an investment of $5,000.The first trailers were bought from welding shops or second hand from private owners.

Starting in 1945 with the first U-Haul trailers painted in the now ubiquitous orange color, Shoen spent the next two decades traveling tirelessly across the United States to create the U-Haul network.

Shoen signed up thousands of franchisees, often service stations that had excess parking, to join U-Haul’s network in exchange for collecting a fee for processing rentals and accepting dropped-off equipment. He developed one-way rentals and enlisted investors as partners in each trailer as methods of growth.

What makes a U-Haul franchise attractive is that franchisees can simply utilize unused land to earn additional income while U-Haul puts up the necessary capital, equipment and rental systems. Within two decades, Shoen had signed up thousands of franchisees and created a national one-way moving network with over 40,000 trailers in service.

His sons wrested control of the company from Shoen in 1986. Leonard Shoen had, out of sense of familial duty, imprudently given them majority ownership in the form of voting shares. After a 1988 attempt to regain control, a lawsuit is filed against his sons, ending with a 1994 verdict of $1.47B in Leonard's favor.

Leonard S. Shoen died on Monday morning after he drove his car into a utility pole near Las Vegas, Nev., his hometown for the last 20 years. Fatal automobile accident when his car struck a telephone pole on Stephanie Street, near Jimmy Durante Boulevard, in Las Vegas. The coroner ruled the death a suicide. He was 83. Leonard Shoen:
Founder of U-Haul

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable – Father of Chicago

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable is regarded as the first permanent resident of Chicago. Jean Baptiste’s French father married a black woman in St. Marc Sainte Domingue. She gave birth to Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable around 1750.

For formal education, his father took him to France. Later, Jean Baptiste worked on his father’s ships as a mariner.

Jean Baptiste traveled to America in 1770s, and he headed north to explore the region near the shores of the Great Lakes. He settled on the shore of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Chicago River.

He recognized its potential as a settlement and built the city’s first permanent home, where the Tribune Tower now stands.

The Indians called this land  ‘Eschikagou’, the place of bad smells due to the odor of the swampland  Since Jean Baptiste was a fur trader, it served as a trading post. He sold his own milk, cheese, beef, and corn throughout the region, eventually reaching markets as far as Louisiana and Quebec.

His trading post became the main supply station for trappers and traders en route to the west.

After a few years, Jean Baptiste also supplied destalked food items to trading posts in Canada and Detroit.

Jean Baptiste became well known for trading goods throughout the Midwest. As a result he became very wealthy.

In 1814, Jean Baptiste filed for bankruptcy and he died, penniless, on August 29, 1818.
Jean Baptiste Point du Sable – Father of Chicago