Napoleon Hill

Napoleon Hill was born nearby on 26 Oct. 1883. At age 13, he became a "mountain reporter" for small-town newspapers. He left Southwest Virginia in 1908 to write magazine profiles of such business leaders as Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison. Hill virtually invented the gospel of personal achievement by distilling their principles of financial success into several motivational books. He published Think and Grow Rich, the century's most popular such book, in 1937. Hill lectured widely and served as an advisor to presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. He died in Greenville, S.C., on 7 Nov. 1970.