Let’s say you are plotting a career of achievements. There are a lot of examples to follow in Greater Des Moines, but it would be tough to beat the example of the Frederick M. “F.M.” Hubbell.

Let’s start with the purchase of 640 acres of Woodbury County farmland in 1856, just a year after he journeyed to Iowa from Connecticut with his father, who was looking to buy and sell land. The Hubbells reached Des Moines, then called Fort Des Moines, by stagecoach. F.M.’s father, Francis, bought some property, sold it at a profit and decided to return home.

F.M. decided to stay behind, believing that the state provided more opportunities for a 16-year-old. He landed a job as a federal land agent, worked in Sioux City, then returned to Des Moines in 1861. In the interim, he learned the real estate business, studied law and was admitted to the Iowa bar.

He worked for the Des Moines law firm of Phineas Casady and Jefferson S. Polk. In 1864, Casady retired and the firm was renamed Polk & Hubbell. Real estate and business law were its specialties.

Hubbell had other interests. In 1867, at age 28, he founded Equitable Life Insurance Co. and served as its president from 1888 until 1907. It was the first life insurance company founded west of the Mississippi River. He eventually bought out Polk and 11 other investors in the company and was its sole owner by 1920.

Real estate, law and life insurance were the raw materials of a broader resume.

When the Polk & Hubbell law firm was dissolved in 1887, Hubbell owned large pieces of downtown Des Moines, railroad companies and the manufacturer of the small-gauge tracks that their trains ran on. He also was an owner and founder of Des Moines Water Works.

To manage his real estate holdings, Hubbell formed F.M. Hubbell, Son and Co. The son was Frederick C. Hubbell. In 1991, the company became Hubbell Realty Co.

In 1903, F.M. Hubbell formed a trust that would provide dividends to his heirs far into the future. Among the restrictions was that all real estate holdings had to remain in Des Moines or Polk County and that the real estate company could not take on debt. F.M. Hubbell died in 1930 at age 91. The trust would remain in effect another 50 years.

About $200 million was distributed to 13 heirs when the trust expired in 1983. A decision 10 years in the making had been reached to preserve Hubbell Realty as a self-sustaining enterprise with F.M. Hubbell’s great-great-grandson, James W. Hubbell III, at the helm.

“Those are some incredibly big shoes to fill,” said Andrew Hubbell, F.M.’s great-great-great-grandson, who works in the land development division of Hubbell Realty.

Sources: Iowa Insurance Hall of Fame, American National Biographies Online, The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa by contributing author William Friedricks.