John Edward Hollenbeck

John Edward Hollenbeck (June 5, 1829 – September 2, 1885) was an American businessman and investor who was involved in the 19th century development of Nicaragua and the city of Los Angeles, California.

J. Edward Hollenbeck was born in Hudson, Ohio, and later moved with his parents to Winnebago County, Illinois. He had limited schooling and, in 1846, decided that he did not wish to be a farmer. With his father's permission, the young man left home to make his own way. After doing day labor for traveling funds, he returned to Ohio and apprenticed himself to learn the machinist's trade with Bell and Chamberlain in Cuyahoga Falls. He became master of his trade in three years, but declined to join his employers’ business as a partner.

Instead of establishing himself in business in Ohio, young Hollenbeck decided to travel to the California gold fields. He took passage on a sailing vessel from New Orleans to Aspinwall, now Colón, in Panama. Upon his arrival, however, the steamer upon which he had booked passage broke down, and he contracted a fever while waiting for repairs. He was too ill to continue traveling and sold his remaining ticket for California.

The coastal areas of Panama and Nicaragua, and particularly the community of Greytown, Nicaragua, were growing rapidly due to the area's position as the eastern terminus of a transport operation owned by American Cornelius Vanderbilt's Accessory Transit Company. This transportation network carried thousands of travelers each month from the Atlantic to the Pacific side of Central America on their way to the gold rush in San Francisco. Sail and steam-ships traveled from New York and New Orleans in the United States to Greytown. From there, small boats transported passengers up the San Juan River and across Lake Nicaragua. Then, mules, horses, or stagecoaches carried them over the small isthmus between the lake and San Juan del Sur, Rivas on the Pacific where they would embark on ships traveling the coast between Panama and Nicaragua and California.

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