Patton Cobblepot was responsible for building out Gotham's subway system before the turn of the century.

Patton's youngest son, Barnabas Cobblepot was a famous occultist and hypnotist, who joined The Victorian Legion and endowed a professorship of psychology at Gotham University. Barnabas mysteriously disappeared during the the_great_gotham_fire_of_1911.

Barnabas's nephew Desmond Cobblepot is the,current head of Cobblepot Amalgamated, the family business. Construction and shipping are it's two major areas, and business has of course been bad. Desmond has been reported as becoming more and more erratic as the company's balance sheet looks worse and worse.