Tropical Trading and Transport Company

Minor Cooper Keith (19 January 1848 – 14 June 1929) was an American businessman whose railroad, commercial agriculture, and shipping enterprises much influenced the national economies of the Central American countries, and that of Colombia. His pioneering banana interests were absorbed by the then powerful United Fruit Company, today industry dominating giant Chiquita Brands International.

As a businessman, Minor C. Keith is notable for being a pioneer in the establishment and administration of a multi-national company and the exportation and importation of goods among the United States and the countries of the Caribbean Sea.

Keith was born in Brooklyn, New York, to the lumber merchant Minor Hubbell Keith, and his wife Emily Meiggs, sister of Henry Meiggs, a railroad businessman. After private schooling, the sixteen-year-old adolescent was employed as a store clerk on Broadway; months later, he quit clerking, and became a lumber surveyor. Having saved $3,000 in a year, Keith bought a cattle ranch located on a river island near the mouth of the Rio Grande, in southern Texas, which he administered until 1871, when he accepted a work invitation, from his uncle to help manage the building of a railroad in Costa Rica, in Central America.

In 1871, Keith's uncle Henry Meiggs had signed a contract with the government of Costa Rican president Tomás Guardia Gutiérrez for the construction of a railroad from the capital city of San José to what became the Caribbean port of Limón. Minor Keith was involved in the project from the start and took it over after Meiggs's death in 1877.

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