Wealthy eccentrics

Sometimes the rich are a little different.

George Fabyan (1867 -1936)
George Fabyan (1867 -1936)
Fabyan made a fortune as a cloth dealer and then retired to his estate, Riverbank, in Geneva, Illinois. The house was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. There, Fabyan devoted himself to his varied interests. He became convinced, using cryptological analysis, that Francis Bacon was the author of many Shakespeare plays, and persuaded a court to rule to this effect in 1916. He spent almost two years and $75,000 transplanting a windmill to his estate. And he spent years trying to build an acoustically-operated levitation device.

But Fabyan was more than just a crank - or at least he left more of a legacy. At Riverbank he brought in world-class researchers in architectural acoustics, and it was Riverbank-trained cipher analysts who helped crack German and Mexican codes during World War I.

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.