was forced by a financial setback to combine his venture with Andrew W. Preston's Boston Fruit Company, which dominated the banana trade in the West Indies. The result of the merger was the powerful United Fruit Company, of which Keith became vice-president. In 1904, Keith signed a contract with the President of Guatemala, Manuel Estrada Cabrera, giving the company tax-exemptions, land grants, and control of all railroads on the Atlantic side of the country. Other activities Keith also invested in gold mining in Abangares, in the Costa Rican province of Guanacaste. In 1912 he returned to railroad building, organizing the International Railways of Central America and eventually completing an 800-mi (1,287-km) railway system, but died before realizing his dream of a line from Guatemala to the Panama Canal. His work profoundly altered the economic life of Central American countries. Keith also founded a chain of general stores and owned one of the largest poultry farms in the United States. In 1917, Keith acquired huge amounts of the assets of St. Andrews Bay Development Company, which was founded by his brother-in-law, W. H. Lynn. He also acquired huge tracts of land around the area of Panama City, Florida, formerly owned by R. L. McKenzie and A. J. Gay. Keith and his millions are credited with "putting Bay County on the map" as he also purchased the railroad, the area's mills, over two hundred thousand acres of land, built both the Lynn Haven Hotel and the Pines Hotel in Panama City and developed and constructed a new golf course on North Bay. Keith was a trustee of the foundation that managed George Gustav Heye's collection of Native American artifacts and he bequeathed his own ancient Native American gold to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Death and legacy Keith died on 14 June 1929 of bronchial pneumonia at his home in West Islip, Long Island, New York. According to John Dos Passos in his USA Trilogy, Minor Cooper Keith was an example of the phrase "chip off the old block". References Further reading 1848 births 1929 deaths 19th-century American railroad executives American food industry businesspeople 20th-century American railroad executives American railway entrepreneurs Businesspeople from New York City American businesspeople in shipping Deaths from bronchopneumonia Deaths from pneumonia in New York (state) People from Brooklyn People from West Islip, New York