William Brooks Close

William Brooks Close (1853–1923) was a British businessman active in the Midwestern United States. He first arrived in the United States during the summer of 1876 to compete in a regatta in Philadelphia while he was the president of the Cambridge University Boat Club. Close and two brothers, Frederick and James, created a colony in Iowa called the Close Colony. They made a profit from buying public land and reselling it. He was the co-founder of the Close Brothers Group. Close helped finance the building of a railway from Skagway into the Yukon, named the White Pass and Yukon Route.