Minor C. Keith, the entrepreneur known as the “Banana King,” built the first railway linking Costa Rica’s Central Valley with the Caribbean port of Limón.
Keith became involved in the project in 1871 after his uncle, railway entrepreneur Henry Meiggs, secured a contract from the Costa Rican government. The line was intended to move coffee from the highlands to an Atlantic outlet, avoiding the long overland journey to the Pacific. Keith took over the work after Meiggs’s death in 1877 and faced rugged terrain, heavy rain, disease, financial crises and repeated labor shortages.
The railway was completed in 1890, but its early passenger and cargo traffic was insufficient to cover Keith’s debts. He had already begun planting bananas along the route, and the railway ultimately helped make large-scale banana exports possible. He also operated steamships connecting Limón with New Orleans.
Keith later became a founder and vice-president of United Fruit. Henry Meiggs was his uncle and an early figure in the railway project, but Keith is the entrepreneur most directly associated with completing Costa Rica’s Caribbean railway and building the banana-export system around it.