Benjamin Franklin Yoakum, railroad executive, was born near Tehuacana, Texas on August 20, 1859, the son of Narcissa (Teague) and Franklin L. Yoakum. At age twenty, he became a rodman and chain bearer in a railroad surveying gang, laying the International-Great Northern Railroad into Palestine, Texas. He later became a land boomer and immigration agent for the Jay Gould Lines. He drilled artesian wells and brought European immigrants from New York to farm the land of the Trans-Mississippi and the Rio Grande valley.
In 1886, he became the traffic manager of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway. In 1887, the town of Yoakum, Texas, was named for him. In 1889, he was promoted to general manager of the railways, and in 1890, he became receiver. For three years, he was general manager and third vice president of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe. In 1897, he became the general manager of the Frisco (St. Louis and San Francisco Railway Company). Under him, the lines grew from 1,200 to 6,000 miles.
In 1905, the Frisco and Rock Island lines were joined, and Yoakum was the chairman of the executive committee. This line was known as the Yoakum Line and at the time was the largest railroad system under a single control. His career was one of the most colorful of the many men in railroad history. He knew each branch of work: engineering, traffic, operating, and finance.
In 1907, Yoakum moved to New York, where he had a farm in Farmingdale. He owned a large estate which is now Bethpage State Park and Lenox Hills. He constructed a rifle range on his estate during World War I so would-be soldiers could practice. After World War I, he laid out the streets and developed the Lenox Hills section of Farmingdale. which included a golf course. He created the Lenox Hills Club, which required membership and became Farmingdale's first country club.
He became President and later Chairman of the Board of the Empire Board and Mortgage Company. He wrote articles for popular magazines and lectured about railways to clubs and labor unions. Yoakum married Elizabeth Bennett of San Antonio, the daughter of a pioneer Southwestern banker. They had two daughters. Yoakum died at his home in New York on November 28, 1929.
Sources:
"Farmingdale History." Jesse Merritt
Junior Historical Society of Farmingdale. Farmingdale's Story: Farms to Flight. The Society, 1956
Orozco-Vallejo, Mary M. “Yoakum, Benjamin Franklin.” Orozco-Vallejo, Mary M. 14 June 2010, tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fyo01