Hilton, Conrad Nicholson (1887-1979), an American businessman, was sometimes called the “biggest hotel man in the world.” He organized the Hilton Hotel Systems in 1946. In 1948, he started to build hotels in the cities of Berlin, Istanbul, Madrid, and Tokyo. By the mid-1960’s, the Hilton chain included over 40 hotels in the United States and 40 hotels in 37 other countries. By the early 2000’s, after Hilton’s death, the Hilton Hotels Corporation, as the company was then called, operated thousands of hotels worldwide.
Hilton was born on Dec. 25, 1887, in San Antonio, New Mexico. He started his first hotel chain in Texas and New Mexico in 1918. He expanded to California in 1929, to New York in 1943, and to Chicago in 1945, where he bought the Stevens, then the world’s largest hotel, and changed its name to the Conrad Hilton. Hilton died on Jan. 3, 1979. His great-granddaughter Paris Hilton, a celebrity and socialite, starred in the television series “The Simple Life” (2003-2007). Another great-granddaughter, Paris’s sister, Nicky Hilton, also appeared on the series.
