Conrad Hilton

Conrad Nicholson Hilton (December 25, 1887 – January 3, 1979) was an American businessman who founded the Hilton Hotels chain. From 1912 to 1916, Hilton was a Republican representative in the first New Mexico Legislature, but became disillusioned with the "inside deals" of politics. In 1919, he purchased his first hotel, the Mobley Hotel in Cisco, Texas, for $40,000, and subsequently capitalized on the oil boom. The rooms were rented out in 8 hour shifts. He continued to buy and sell hotels, and eventually established the world's first international hotel chain. When he died in 1979, he left the bulk of his estate to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. Early life Hilton was born in San Antonio, in what was then the New Mexico Territory, to Norwegian-born Augustus Halvorsen Hilton (1854–1919) and Mary Genevieve Laufersweiler. He attended the Goss Military Academy (since renamed as the New Mexico Military Institute) and St. Michael's College (later called the Santa Fe University of Art and Design), and the New Mexico School of Mines (now New Mexico Tech). From 1912 to 1916, Hilton was a Republican representative in the first New Mexico Legislature, when the state was newly formed. Hilton became frustrated with the “bureaucracy, slowness, cheating, lying, and inside deals of politics,” and in 1916, he refused to run for a fourth term, instead endorsing his longtime political ally, Quianu Robinson. He served two years in the United States Army during World War I. After completing Officer Training School, he became a second lieutenant, and served in Paris in the Quartermaster Corps. While Conrad was in France with the army after the war, his father was killed in a car accident.