Speed, James Breckinridge, 1844-1912.

Speed was a Lt. in the 27th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War. He later became an important businessman in Louisville, Ky. with investments in the cement, sale, brick and telephone industries as well as real estate in Louisville and Chicago. Speed, Indiana was founded to support one of his factories.

James Breckinridge (also spelled Breckenridge) Speed was born 4 June 1844 in Missouri to William Pope Speed and Mary Ellen Shallcross. He was a prominent businessman in Louisville, Kentucky at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century.

J. B. Speed's father, William P. Speed, was born at Farmington plantation in Jefferson County, Kentucky, 26 April 1816 to John Speed and his wife, Lucy Gilmer Fry; his brothers included James Speed, Abraham Lincoln's second attorney general, and Joshua Fry Speed, Lincoln's personal friend. Four years after J. B. Speed's birth, his mother passed away (William P. Speed's first wife, Margaret Phillips, had passed away in 1840). William P. Speed remarried a third time, to Ardell Hutchinson, with whom he had two children, Laura T. Speed and Austin Peay Speed. According to some sources, after his mother's death, J. B. Speed was raised in Louisville by his aunt Lucy Speed Breckinridge, educated in Louisville schools (his father was in Missouri). He went into banking in Chicago, working as a clerk for the firm of Badger and Company, until the Civil War broke out in 1861. He returned to Kentucky to enlist, and rose to the position of adjutant of the 27th Kentucky Infantry. After the war ended in spring 1865, J. B. Speed took up a business career in Louisville. J. B. Speed held an interest in a number of leading business corporations. His longest engagement was with J. B. Speed and Company, which he headed; this company dealt in lime, cement, and building materials. The business operated on Main Street in Louisville, and Speed's associates were William H. Mundy, Speed's cousin, Gilmer S. Adams, and Speed's son, William S. Speed. Speed also headed up the coal company Speed & Byrne. At different times, he served as the president and executive officer of Louisville Cement Company, the Louisville Street Railroad Company, and the Ohio Valley Telephone Company, and was a director in several banks and other corporations. He was instrumental in the raising of the first building exclusively designed and equipped for telephone purposes. J. B. Speed built up a large business enterprise, and cared for his own estate along with others for which he was a trustee. J. B. Speed married Cora Coffin of Cincinnati in 1867; the couple had three children, Olive (married Frederick M. Sackett), Douglas Breckinridge (died young) and William Shallcross, who followed in his father's footsteps into business in Louisville, heading several manufacturing, coal, and other corporations which were headquartered in Louisville. Specifically, William was the first vice president and the general manager of the Louisville Cement Company; upon his father's death, he became its president, and also became president of the North Jellico Coal Company, the Taylor Coal Company, J. B. Speed Salt Company, and vice president of Pioneer Coal Company. William S. Speed married Virginia Perrin. Cora Coffin Speed passed away in 1905, and J. B. Speed married a second time, to Harriet "Hattie" Bishop, in 1906. Speed passed away 7 July 1912 in Rockland, Maryland, where he made his summer home.