Yaggy, Levi Walter
Levi Walter Yaggy (July 16, 1848 - October 18, 1912) was an American author, publisher, and inventor. Born in Plainfield, Illinois to Jacob Yaggy and Elizabeth Pfister Yaggy, Levi attended Northwestern College in Naperville, Illinois before moving to Chicago, where he established a publishing house named the Great Western Publishing House in 1874. Yaggy served as the president and chief stockholder of the publishing house, which eventually grew to include seventeen branch offices and five thousand agents throughout the United States. Great Western Publishing focused mainly on the publication of maps and studies for colleges and high schools, and was for years the foremost publisher of this genre of material in the United States. Yaggy held several patents, including one for a stubble turner, which was very lucrative, one or an adding machine different, and a Chautauqua desk. Upton completion of a relief map fo the United States for the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C., Yaggy was made a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of England. During a hunting trip in Kansas in 1888, Yaggy noticed a well being dug, and remarked that the water level was only a few feet below the surface. He immediately purchased the entire estate and planned catalpa and apple trees. This plantation grew into one of the most lucrative in the country.
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