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Billings became fast friends, their lives intertwining for their remaining
years. In 1898, Knapp and Billings joined other investors in founding the
Union Carbide Company, which produced acetylene gas and created a
fortune for both men.
A Matinee World
Determined to become one of the foremost figures in the world
of horse racing, Billings joined the Metropolitan Jockey Club and
purchased part of the new Jamaica Race Track in Queens, New York.
The track opened to great fanfare a month after Billings’ party. With its
steel grandstand and cantilevered roof, its glass-roofed paddock with 22
box stalls, and its well-appointed lounging rooms and baths for the use
of jockeys, the track was considered one of the finest new venues on the
racing circuit.
set about remodeling the existing cottages into a large manor house known
as
Green Gables
. After the Chicago World’s Fair closed, he purchased the
replica of a 12
th
century Norwegian stavkirke and had it disassembled and
shipped by rail to his estate at Lake Geneva. The Billingses entertained
lavishly at their summer cottage enjoying the new clubhouse, bowling
alley and private tennis court. Besides a speedy iceboat, their steam yacht,
the
Grayling
, was docked on the lake.
In 1893, George Owen Knapp, a minister’s son from Massachusetts
with a degree in engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in
New York, became president of Peoples Gas Light and Coke Company,
a position he would alternate with Billings and others for several years.
Knapp had joined the company as chief engineer in 1883, and he and
That same year, Billing purchased one of his most famous and favorite
horses, the Queen of the Trotters, the Standardbred Lou Dillon. Foaled in
1898 by the Pierce Brothers Stock Farm near Santa Ynez, California, she
was considered high strung and hard to handle but capable of sensational
speeds. Billings added her to his stable in 1903 but refused to race her on
the Grand Circuit, entering her in exhibitions and amateur races only.
That year, she became the first trotter to run a 2-minute mile, and later
bested her own record by running 1:58 ½ at Memphis, Tennessee. Billings
himself drove her in a Memphis race in which she again ran a 2-minute
mile. In 1904, Lou Dillon was doped at the Memphis Gold Cup Race by
a rival to prevent her from winning. The scandal rocked the racing world
and helped put an end to her career. She was retired in 1906.
The King and Queen of the Trotters, Uhlan (left)
and Lou Dillon lived out their days at Billings’
stable in Santa Barbara
Billings and Knapp were
instrumental in forming the
Santa Barbara Riding and
Hunt Club in Hope Ranch
where they commissioned
Reginald Johnson to design
a Spanish Colonial complex
stable (Photo courtesy of
Santa Barbara Historical
Museum)