Leigh S. J. Hunt

 

Leigh S. J. Hunt (1855-1933), namesake of Hunts Point, became Yarrow Point’s first land speculator and on its northern shoreline Hunt built a large estate he named “Yarrow” after a favorite poem by William Wordsworth.

Hunt was owner and editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1886-1894; and organizer of Oriental Consolidated Mines, Korea and of growing cotton in Sudan (1904-1910).

Hunts Point bears Hunt's name even though he never lived there. 

He was a gregarious, larger-than-life figure whose ventures included a stint as owner and publisher of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer from 1886 to 1894. He also bought thousands of acres of Eastside land in an attempt to create, along with Peter Kirk (1840-1916) and other men, a bustling steel operation intended to make Kirkland the "Pittsburgh of the West." 

They built a brickworks and dozens of houses, and made plans for a bank, a hotel, and other businesses.

As the steel mill neared completion in 1893 a financial panic triggered a severe four-year nationwide depression that forced Hunt to sell everything at a loss, including his land on Hunts Point. 

The Huntridge neighborhood in Las Vegas was developed on land that was his farm while during mining and land development in Las Vegas, Nevada (1923 - 1933). 

Hunt died October 5th, 1933, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

https://www.historylink.org/File/11125