1858 – 1948
Attorney
Charles H. Stoll was born in Lexington in 1858, the fourth son of George H. Stoll, Sr. He graduated from Transylvania College and in 1886 entered the practice of law. Stoll was one of the founders of the Electric Street Railway Company, George Stoll & Sons (with his father – traded in bonded whiskey). In 1886, he became associated with the Kentucky Union Railroad and negotiated its sale to the Carley interests. After the sale, he became its principal attorney and oversaw the extension into Eastern Kentucky. In 1888, he became one of the organizers of the Belt Line Companies, which organized the electric streetcar lines in Lexington. As their attorney, he was one of the “Generals” in the Railroad War with his former client, the Kentucky Union Railroad Company.
In 1880, Stoll was one of the organizers of the Kentucky Distillers Association in Louisville, Kentucky. In the late 1890s, he was a principal organizer of the Kentucky Distilleries and Warehouse Company (the Whiskey Trust). He continued as legal counsel for the Whiskey Trust until 1907.
Stoll developed the Hampton Court subdivision in Lexington. He served as a director of the Lexington City National Bank from the late 1880s until the late 1890s.
At the turn of the century, he relocated to New York City to represent the Whiskey Trust. He returned to Lexington in 1904 and became the President of the Lexington Hydraulic and Manufacturing Company (the forerunner of the Lexington Water Works). He was reelected to the board of the Lexington City National Bank. In 1907, he moved to Mississippi and later to Bristol, Tennessee, where he died in 1948. [i]
[i] Lexington Herald, September 24, 1948, page 1, column 2.
