March 5, 1877: Duluth park visionary named personal secretary of President Rutherford B. Hayes

On this day in 1877 former and future Duluth William K. Rogers was named personal secretary of his good friend, President Rutherford B. Hayes. Rogers had met Hayes when he was attending Kenyon College, Hayes’s alma mater. Rogers greatly admired the future president Hayes, and they began what would become a lifetime friendship. In 1870 Hayes asked Rogers to visit Duluth. Rogers and Hayes together purchased 160 acres “along the hilltop” and two lots in downtown Duluth at First Avenue East and Superior Street where they built the Hayes Block. When Hayes named Rogers his private secretary, the Duluth Minnesotian gushed: “Our half-adopted worthy townsman, William K. Rogers, Esq., whom everybody in Duluth is familiar with, has been appointed Private Secretary to President Hayes. This appointment is as wise as was that of the election of the President himself.” Presidential scholar Shirley Anne Warsaw disagrees, writing that Hayes “reluctantly” chose Rogers after two other Ohioans declined the offer. Hayes restricted Rogers’ authority and his main role was “to serve as friend and cheerleader for presidential decisions rather than manage the internal workings of the White House.” In Washington Rogers also busied himself answering the president’s mail, and even this was interrupted by bouts with illnesses that, as Ryan explains, “could keep him prone for weeks at a time, sometimes unable to walk short distances or even sit up.” His illnesses weren’t enough to prevent him from fathering a child while working in the White House. He named the new baby boy Rutherford Hayes Rogers. There is much more to the life of William K. Rogers, including his vision for Duluth’s park system, and you can read it here.

William K. Rogers. (Image: Hayes Presidential Library)