Street's Streat

Men quipped, in 1870, that frock-coated John Insley Blair built railroads to use steel from his mills, towns to provide traffic for his railroads. One of the great railroad barons, he helped found the Chicago & North Western, the Lackawanna and the Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri. In 1890, at 88, he capped his great career by founding the famed banking firm of Blair & Co.

Nine years later, when old John Blair was laid in his grave, a 15-year-old stripling named Hearn Waters Streat went to work for Blair & Co. as a runner. While Blair & Co. built up a reputation as the first firm to make equipment trust certificates a safe investment, and as co-financiers of Western Pacific, Missouri Pacific and many a big industrial concern like Texas Co., genial Hearn Streat moved up through the ranks. He became a junior partner in 1920, same year Blair absorbed William Salomon & Co. In 1929, when Blair merged with the security affiliate of Bank of America (Manhattan's, not San Francisco's) to become Bancamerica-Blair Corp. Partner Streat's hair was thinning, his waist thickening, his friends spreading from coast to coast.

Last month Transamerica Corp., the vast holding company which sold its interest in Bank of America (Manhattan) in 1931, sold working control in Bancamerica-Blair to San Francisco Financier Ashby Oliver Stewart, who is now chairman of the board (TIME, Dec. 26). Obvious choice as active head of the firm was hard-working Hearn Streat, not only the employe with the longest service but credited in Wall Street as the underwriter with the widest acquaintance in the business. Last week he became vice chairman of the board and chairman of the executive committee. Simultaneously, Bancamerica-Blair resumed (subject to stockholders' approval) its maiden name of Blair & Co.

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