Conrad Hilton

Conrad Nicholson Hilton was born on Christmas Day 1887 in San Antonio, New Mexico Territory. His father, Augustus Halvorsen Hilton, was Norwegian-born; his mother, Mary Genevieve Laufersweiler, was a devout Catholic of German descent. Hilton attended the Goss Military Academy, St. Michael’s College, and the New Mexico School of Mines. From 1912 to 1916, he served as a Republican representative in New Mexico’s first state legislature, but grew fed up with what he called the “bureaucracy, slowness, cheating, lying, and inside deals of politics.” He declined to run for a fourth term in 1916, backing his ally Quianu Robinson instead.

During World War I, Hilton spent two years in the U.S. Army, becoming a second lieutenant after Officer Training School and serving in Paris with the Quartermaster Corps. While he was still in France after the war, his father died in a car accident. Hilton credited his mother, the Catholic Church, and his sisters as the lasting influences on his philanthropic outlook. His mother taught him to turn to prayer whenever he faced trouble—from losing a beloved pony as a boy to severe financial losses during the Great Depression—and told him prayer was the best investment he could make.

As a child, Hilton learned business by working at his father’s general store in Socorro County, which also housed a ten-room hotel. After his political stint, he decided to become a banker. He arrived in Texas during the oil boom intending to buy a bank, but when that deal fell through in 1919, he purchased his first hotel instead: the 40-room Mobley Hotel in Cisco, Texas, for $40,000. Business was so good that rooms were rented in eight-hour shifts, and the dining room was turned into extra guest space. He bought and built hotels across Texas, including the Dallas Hilton (1925), the Abilene Hilton (1927), the Waco Hilton (1928), and the El Paso Hilton (1930). His first hotel outside Texas opened in 1939 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, now known as the Hotel Andaluz. The Great Depression nearly bankrupted him, and he lost several properties, but he stayed on as manager of a combined chain and eventually regained control of his remaining eight hotels.

Over the next decade, Hilton expanded to California, Chicago, and New York. Major acquisitions included the Stevens Hotel in Chicago—then the world’s largest, later renamed the Conrad Hilton—and the legendary Waldorf-Astoria in New York. He founded the Hilton Hotels Corporation in 1946 and Hilton International Company in 1948. During the 1950s and 1960s, the chain’s global growth boosted American tourism and overseas business, setting a worldwide standard for hotels. In 1954, Hilton Hotels bought the Hotels Statler Company for $111 million, then the largest real estate deal in history. At his peak, Hilton owned 188 hotels in 38 U.S. cities—including the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., the Palmer House in Chicago, and the Plaza Hotel and Waldorf-Astoria in New York—plus 54 hotels abroad. He also acquired the Carte Blanche Credit Company and a stake in the American Crystal Sugar Company, among other ventures.

Hilton received honorary degrees from the University of Detroit (1953), DePaul University (1954), Barat College (1955), Adelphi College (1957), Sophia University in Tokyo (1963), and the University of Albuquerque (1975). His autobiography, *Be My Guest*, was published in 1958. In 1966, his son Barron succeeded him as president, and Hilton became chairman of the board.

In 1925, Hilton married Mary Adelaide Barron; they had three sons—Conrad Jr., Barron, and Eric—before divorcing in 1934. In 1942, he married actress Zsa Zsa Gabor; they had a daughter, Francesca, and divorced in 1947. Gabor later wrote in her 1991 autobiography that Hilton raped her during their marriage, leading to her pregnancy. Francesca died of a stroke in 2015 at age 67. In 1950, Hilton bought Casa Encantada, a mansion at 10644 Bellagio Road in Bel Air, Los Angeles, calling it “love at first sight” and “one of the fabulous houses of the world.” He lived there until his death in 1979. He was also initiated into the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity in 1957.

When Hilton died on January 3, 1979, he left most of his estate to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.