Ira Yale Sage

Colonel Ira Yale Sage (1848 – 1908) was an American civil engineer, railroad magnate, promoter, and former United States Army officer in Georgia, who became President of the Atlanta and Florida Railway. Following the end of the American Civil War, he was the railroad engineer responsible for the construction of the tracks running from Atlanta to Washington D.C. He also built the Sage Hill estate and became a member of the Social Register.

Notably, he was a member of the Yale family, benefactors of Yale University, and a cousin of Congressman Russell Sage, who helped organizing America's railroad and telegraph systems, leaving a fortune of about 70 million dollars at his death in 1906. He was the brother of Colonel Barzillai Yale Sage, also a railroad builder, and the uncle of Dr. Frances Sage Bradley of the American Red Cross.

His family was of English, Welsh and Norman ancestry, and his ancestor, David Sage, was among the first settlers of Middletown in Connecticut.

Through the family of his grandfather Barzillai Sage, Col. Yale Sage's distant cousins included Princess Kay Sage, Admiral Francis M. Bunce, Cornell benefactor Henry W. Sage, and Senators Henry M. Sage and Josiah B. Williams. The Sages, early benefactors of Cornell University, also built Sage Hall at Yale University, and Sage Library, Sage Hall and Sage Chapel at Cornell, where Henry W. Sage was buried along with Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White.

Biography Cotton States and International Exposition of 1895 in Atlanta, Georgia, Col. Sage built the exposition's electric railway

Col. Sage possessed an early aptitude for mathematics, which allowed him to complete algebra and geometry at age 13, and calculus at 14, and after graduating from college, went on working as a civil engineer.

From 1874 to 1880, he was the chief engineer of construction and repairs of the Atlanta & Charlotte Air Line railroad, of Rabun Gap Short Line from Knoxville to Charleston, and was made division superintendent. He later became the general superintendent of this line, and before reaching 30 years of age, became the general manager of the Georgia Pacific Railway, which became part of the Southern Railway network. In 1894, he built the 27 room "Sage Hill House" in Atlanta; the largest residence in DeKalb County, Georgia at the time. They later sold Sage Hill to the Hochs and moved into the Kimball House Hotel. The home later burned, was demolished, and became Sage Hill shopping center.

Toward the end of his life, he became president of the Georgia Manufacturing and Realty Company, vice-president of the Southern States Life Insurance Company, and board director and member of the finance committee of the Central Bank and Trust, a bank founded by Asa Griggs Candler, cofounder of Coca Cola Company.

Col. Yale Sage died on November 14, 1908, and was buried in the Sage family mausoleum at Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia. With his wife Margaret, he was a member of the Social Register of Atlanta, and noted as a well-known railroad builder.

Children Actor Oliver Hardy with his nieces Mary and Margot Sage from The Live Ghost, granddaughters of Col. Yale Sage Col. Yale Sage married January 3, 1871, to Margaret Alexander, of the Alexander and Byrd family of North Carolina and Virginia. The Sage sisters were also featured in The Bohemian Girl and Our Relations, along with their uncle Oliver Hardy. Hardy was a member of the Laurel and Hardy duo, a coworker of Charlie Chaplin, and a member of the Classical Hollywood cinema era.