Hiram Augustus Unruh (November 1, 1845 – December 16, 1916) was a Union Army soldier from Indiana who became a prominent businessman in California.

Biography

Hiram A. Unruh was born in

Valparaiso, Indiana Valparaiso ( ), colloquially Valpo, is a city in and the county seat of Porter County, Indiana, United States. The population was 34,151 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Chicago metropolitan area. History The site of present-day Valparaiso ...

on November 1, 1845. During the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

, he joined the

20th Indiana Infantry Regiment The 20th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The Regiment was officially raised on July 22, 1861, by William L. Brown, the first Colonel of the Regiment, in res ...

. He was captured and held in

Libby Prison Libby Prison was a Confederate States of America, Confederate prison at Richmond, Virginia, during the American Civil War. In 1862 it was designated to hold officer prisoners from the Union Army, taking in numbers from the nearby Seven Days battl ...

. After being released on parole and then exchanged for a Confederate prisoner, he reenlisted with the 1st United States Marine Artillery Volunteers. After the war, he studied

telegraphy Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas pi ...

, and worked for

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Denver, Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the co ...

Wells Fargo Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with a significant global presence. The company operates in 35 countries and serves over 70 million customers worldwide. It is a systemically important fi ...

, and for

Central Pacific Railroad The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete most of the western part of the "First transcontinental railroad" in North Americ ...

crews building telegraph lines in California. He married Jane Anne Dunn on October 10, 1868, and they had two sons. Unruh was a friend and advisor to E. J. "Lucky" Baldwin, and began managing his business affairs in 1879. He became the executor of his substantial estate after Baldwin's death in 1909, making investments which earned large returns for his heirs. Hiram A. Unruh died while returning from an automobile trip to

Arcadia, California Arcadia is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, located about northeast of downtown Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Valley and at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. It contains a series of adjacent parks consisting of t ...

from Los Angeles. He is buried at Evergreen Cemetery.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Unruh, Hiram A. 1845 births 1916 deaths Burials at Evergreen Cemetery, Los Angeles Businesspeople from California People of Indiana in the American Civil War People from Valparaiso, Indiana Union army soldiers 19th-century American businesspeople