A. G. Armstrong, superintendent of the Santa Fe shops at San Bernardino, is a veteran in the
mechanical service of the Santa Fe Company, with which he has spent nearly twenty years. His home for
the greater part of the time since 1906 has been at San Bernardino, where he enjoys high standing in
business and social circles alike. He made the choice of railroading as a career when a boy, beginning
as an apprentice machinist, and his personal energy, fidelity and experience have taken him up the
scale of promotion to that of superintendent.
Mr. Armstrong was born at Negaunee, Michigan, November 4, 1872, son of John N. and Susan (Eckels)
Armstrong, now deceased, his father of Scotch ancestry and a native of Canada, while his mother was
of an English family and born in Wisconsin. John N. Armstrong was an experienced mining man and
conducted many explorations in the mineral regions of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. He opened
up one of the iron mines on the famous Vermilion Range above Duluth, Minnesota.
A. G. Armstrong attended grammar and high schools in Wisconsin, was a student in the University of
Wisconsin, and began his railroad work as a machinist apprentice to the Northern Pacific Railroad
Company at Brainerd, Minnesota. He was in their service for eleven years as an apprentice machinist
and material inspector, and he represented the Northern Pacific as inspector of the new power building
of the Baldwin L,ocomotive Works at Philadelphia.
Leaving Brainerd and the service of the Northern Pacific in January, 1903, Mr. Armstrong removed to
Topeka, Kansas, where he was in the shops of the Santa Fe as a machinist until the following July, when
he was selected and sent to the Baldwin Locomotive Works, representing the Santa Fe Company during
the construction of between 300 and 400 locomotives.
When Mr. Armstrong first came to San Bernardino in 1906 it was in the capacity of erecting foreman. In
March of the following year he was made general foreman. In December, 1911, he was promoted to
division foreman, with headquarters at Los Angeles, where he remained until July, 1913, when he was
promoted to master mechanic of the Arizona Division, with headquarters at Needles, California. In
March, 1917, he returned to San Bernardino as master mechanic of the Los Angeles Division and on
April 1, 1918, was made shop superintendent at San Bernardino. He has general supervision of a large
force, there having been 1900 car and locomotive employees under his jurisdiction in October, 1920.
Mr. Armstrong is a director of the San Bernardino Valley Bank. He is a republican and is affiliated with
the Elks Lodge. At Brainerd, Minnesota, July 26, 1898, he married Miss Mary Ellen Howe. She was born
in Minneapolis. Minnesota, daughter of the late J. J. Howe, and is of English-Irish descent. Mr. and Mrs.
Armstrong have two sons, John, a member of the class of 1923, and Jerome, of the class of 1924, in the
San Bernardino High School.