In 1854 the German-American industrialist Conrad Poppenhusen arrived; he was already a prosperous manufacturer in Brooklyn of hard rubber goods and expanded his operation to this small farming community. College Point became a factory town primarily for his workers, most of them also German immigrants, and the tycoon became a philanthropist, contributing to churches, libraries, and the Poppenhusen Institute, an educational beacon of College Point. Poppenhusen is responsible for the first free kindergarten in America. He connected College Point to Flushing by the Whitestone Branch of the Flushing and North Side Railroad. A monument on College Point Boulevard, one of the main streets in College Point, stands testament to Poppenhusen.