Minor Cooper Keith
ABOUT MINOR COOPER KEITH
Businessman whose United Fruit Company forever changed the landscape of Central American economics and politics.
He used money he made as a lumber surveyor to buy a cattle ranch in Texas.
He signed a contract in 1904 with the Guatemalan President Manuel Estrada Cabrera that gave his company tax exemptions, land grants, and control of all railroads on the Atlantic side of Guatemala.
His uncle was the famous railroad businessman Henry Meiggs.
He and Henry Ford both used tax breaks from abroad to make their products cheaply.
