Of Irish heritage, James J. Hill grew up on the Canadian frontier. Despite the loss of vision in his right eye after a hunting accident at age 9, little “Jim” was a savvy fisherman and expert hunter, both with his handmade bow and his rifle. Raised by a Catholic mother and a Baptist father, Hill was educated by Quakers, under whose tutelage he mastered surveying and geometry at a young age. His great love, however, was reading, whether it was Walter Scott’s “Ivanhoe” or the great volumes of Shakespeare kept on the family bookshelf. These humble beginnings belied the fact that, one day, James J. Hill would be known far and wide by the sobriquet “The Empire-Builder” and live in the largest private residence—22 fireplaces, a two-story art gallery, 13 bathrooms, a hundred-foot-long reception hall—in the state of Minnesota….