Rembrandts and Renoirs,
And Grand Arching Windows,
Titians and Turners,
And Servants with Pillows.

Vermeers and Fragonards – untied from string;
These were a few of Frick’s favorite things!

Henry Clay Frick likely also loved: “Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels…Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles.”

Julie Andrews (by way of Oscar Hammerstein II).

Frick Blazing Early

H.C. Frick was just 21 years-old when he, two cousins and a close friend decided to start a business. They purchased a beehive oven…well, more of a small building, actually, where they could burn coal to create ‘coke,’ – a type of fuel used to create steel. In that same year, 1871, they formed the Frick Coke Company and Frick told his friends he would be a millionaire by the time he was thirty.

Nine years later, after buying his cousins and friend out (with a friendly loan from Andrew Mellon, a close friend), he renamed his corporation H.C. Frick & Company, employed 1000 people and had taken control of eighty percent of the Pennsylvania coal industry. At that time, coal had value as a fuel source and provided an inexpensive and efficient source of power for steam engines, furnaces and metal forges across the United States.

The Honeymoon

In 1881, Frick married Adelaide Childs and the young couple headed off to New York for their honeymoon. While there, Frick met Andrew Carnegie, a fellow master of the universe and the two became good friends. Carnegie, you see, owned the Carnegie Steel Company… so, more than friendship, the two men created a partnership.

The friendship, and indeed the partnership, was ultimately broken over the next few years as Carnegie continually tried to force Frick out (unsuccessfully).
A massive labor strike would ., ...