Daniel Keith Ludwig (June 24, 1897 – August 27, 1992) was an American shipping businessman, who was also involved in many other industries. He pioneered the construction of super tankers in Japan, founded Exportadora de Sal, SA in Mexico and developed it as the largest salt company in the world, built a model community in association with the Jari project, which he pioneered, on the Amazon River in Brazil to produce pulp paper, and had numerous hotels around the world.

Though he was one of the wealthiest tycoons of his day, with operations spanning 23 countries, Ludwig remained completely obscure due to his reclusive lifestyle. keeping a low profile throughout his business career. He only gave one interview during his lifetime, which he granted to Dero A. Saunders of Fortune Magazine in 1957. Ludwig was #1 on the first Forbes 400 list in 1982.

Childhood

Daniel Keith Ludwig was born in 1897 to Daniel Franklin Ludwig (1873–1960) and Florabelle Leslie (1876–1961) in South Haven, Michigan, on the shores of Lake Michigan. His grandfather, John G. Ludwig (1842–1920), was one of seven brothers in a family of 13, most of them born in Pennsylvania. Four of Daniel's granduncles made their living as captains of Great Lakes vessels.

The senior Daniel and his wife Florabelle separated when young Daniel was 15. Daniel Sr. took the youth to Port Arthur, Texas to live with his grandfather John G. Ludwig. Florabelle Ludwig was left alone in South Haven without any means of support. She remarried Daniel Robert Martin in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1915 and resided in the state of Washington the rest of her life. Daniel Sr. moved to Virginia and remarried Isabel Rutherford. Daniel Sr. died in Manatee, Florida in 1960.

Ludwig's first venture into shipping was at the age of nine, when he salvaged a boat.

Princess International Hotels

Ludwig built or bought an impressive collection of hotels. These were: the Hamilton Princess and Southampton Princess in Bermuda; the Bahamas Princess (formerly the King's Inn) and the Xanadu Princess Tower (formerly the International) in Freeport; the Acapulco Princess and the Pierre Marques in Mexico; and the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco.

Exportadora de Sal, SA

In 1954, on a trip to Baja California Sur, Ludwig founded Exportadora de Sal S.A., which became the "Largest Salt Company in the World", at the Guerrero Negro lagoon. As the rural area was largely uninhabited, Ludwig arranged for the necessary workers and materials to be transported there to build a large, new town in the municipality of Mulegé. Here, the saltworks were established by pumping the brine to the surface and allowing it to dry. In 1973, with rumors that the Mexican Government would nationalize the company, Ludwig sold his interest in Exportadora de Sal, SA to Mitsubishi. It owns 49%, with the Mexican government holding the controlling interest.

Citricos de Chiriqui, SA

In a $25 million 1960 project in Panama, Ludwig bought of land in Dolega, in the interior of Panama to develop for citrus cultivation. He had all the land cleared and built roads and bridges. He had 800,000 Valencia orange trees planted, with full production expected by 1967. It was considered the largest privately owned venture of its kind in the world. Years later it was nationalized. The New York Times reported that an auction of Citricos de Chiriqui, SA failed to attract any bidders; the minimum asking price was $13.9 million. It was later purchased by Colombian businessman, Guillermo Cardenas P., and is still functioning to date.

Jari project

In 1966 Ludwig became attracted to ideas of development in the Amazonian Basin. A brutal military dictatorship had toppled the progressive Goulart government in a 1964 coup, with US backing, and US investment was encouraged by the conservative Brazilian generals in power. In 1967, he purchased about 4 million acres (1.6 million ha) of land in Brazil on the north bank of the river in the northeast interior for $3 million. He planned to construct a pulp paper factory, known as the Jari project, as he projected a shortage of fiber on the world market in the coming decades (about which he was right). The site was downriver from American Henry Ford's failed massive project to produce rubber, for which he built a workers' city in the jungle, Fordlandia.

Ludwig planned a massive pulp paper project, and cleared land to plant two varieties of trees to be harvested for paper. He had a 26-mile railroad constructed, as well as 3,000 miles of trails and roads; the settlements had 30,000 inhabitants by early 1982.

Under the terms of his will, Ludwig Centers were established in 2006 at six United States research institutions (Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Stanford University and the University of Chicago). To date, they have received US$900 million from the Virginia and Daniel K. Ludwig Fund for Cancer Research.

The Centers and the Ludwig Institute are now collectively known as Ludwig Cancer Research. By the terms of the grant, their directors and scientists are to work collaboratively with each other and with the Institute.

In Canada Rodrigue Choquette, alias Roddy Choquette, was one of his finance advisor.

Personal life

Ludwig married Gladys Madeline Ludwig (1904–1978), in Florida on October 29, 1928. She gave birth to her daughter Patricia Margaret born on October 8, 1936. Estranged from his wife, Ludwig did not acknowledge the girl as his daughter. The couple divorced in April 1937.

Believing Patricia might at some later time try to challenge the terms of his will and claim part of his estate, Daniel Ludwig had blood samples frozen in the 1970s that could be used for genetic testing if ever necessary. Patricia Ludwig did file a lawsuit in the 1990s after his death, but DNA analysis proved Ludwig was not her father, and the case was dismissed. Katherine Jones, Patricia's aunt, claimed that everyone in the family thought that Patricia's father was James Sullivan, a sales rep who died in a car accident in 1939.

Several months after his divorce, Ludwig married Gertrude Virginia "Ginger" Higgins (January 13, 1897 – April 8, 1993), a widow with three children from a previous marriage. They lived in the penthouse at the Park Cinq, a co-op in Manhattan, and remained married until his death there on August 27, 1992.

See also

  • American Petroleum Transport Corporation
  • List of richest Americans in history

References

Bibliography

English

  • Dero A. Saunders., "The Wide Oceans of D. K. Ludwig," Fortune, May 1957.
  • "Ex-Wife sues Tycoon Ludwig for 10 million", San Francisco Chronicle, 27 January 1978.
  • "Twilight of a Tycoon" (Time, November 30, 1978, p. 77), available on-line.
  • James R. Arnold, North American Heritage, October 1985 (vol. V11, no. 3).

Other languages

  • Michel Braudeau, « Daniel Ludwig avait rêvé trop tard », first published in Le Monde, 17 July 2003, collected in Le rêve amazonien, éditions Gallimard, 2004 ().
  • Ships built by Daniel K. Ludwig , t2tanker website
  • Biography, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research website.
  • Great American Business Leaders
  • Infoplease
  • New York Times Magazine obituary, 1992
  • "Daniel Ludwig's Floating Factory", Time, 19 June 1978
  • Exportadora de Sal, SA
  • Obituary of Charles P. Ludwig, DK's uncle in Otsego, NY
  • Morton Smerling, "Capt. Ludwig, 94, Is a Genuine Old Salt", article includes photo of Capt. Lancaster Columbia Ludwig, DK's uncle
  • Obituary: Capt. L.C. Ludwig, Age 99" , South Haven Tribune, 17 May 1954 (DK's uncle Lancaster C. Ludwig, 1855-1954)