James Butler

Who was James Butler?

James Butler was an American businessman from New York and prominent owner of racehorses and racetracks.

As a hotel steward in the early 1880s, Butler invested his $2,000 life savings with Patrick J. O'Connor to open a grocery store on Second Avenue in New York. The business grew to a chain of stores so successful that Butler quit the hotel business and bought out O'Connor. Butler had a reputed net worth of $30 million by 1929.

By 1890, Butler had bought his first horses, and eventually acquired the EastView Stock Farm near Greenburgh and Mount Pleasant, New York. In the early 1900s, he established the Empire City Race Track.

At the time of his death, his grocery store chain was the sixth largest in the U.S. by total sales, and his more than 1,100 stores were second only to A & P in the New York area.