He was born in 1898 in Lancaster, Texas, but the family soon moved to Fort Smith, where he and two younger brothers attended public schools. He enrolled at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and studied accounting, but when World War I began, he enlisted and was sent to Camp Pike (now Camp Robinson) in North Little Rock. While at Camp Pike, he developed an affinity for the city of Little Rock. When the war was over he returned to the city and married Elizabeth Purcell, with whom he had two children. He became a certified public accountant in Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma, although he never finished his degree.
He first worked in banking, then became a field auditor for the U.S. Treasury Department. In 1927, he became an accountant for the Arkansas Gazette Publishing Co., where he made an interesting discovery: The company had been significantly overpaying its federal income taxes for many years. When he informed the owner of the company, he struck a deal to receive a third of the total amount the company would receive as a refund. His share came to $32,000, or approximately $483,700 today.
With the money he received from the Gazette, he was able to establish several small businesses, focusing on accounting, insurance, real estate and printing — all under one holding company that would eventually grow to hold more than 25 corporations, including a Ford dealership.
He re-enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942 and served as a lieutenant colonel. After the war, he and Elizabeth were divorced. In 1937, he bought an elephant from a circus and donated her to the Little Rock Zoo, naming her Ruth, after his daughter.
By the mid-1940s, he held ownership of large parcels of land in and around the city as well as a private hunting lodge southwest of the city. The lodge lay at the south end of a gravel road named Hayes Street, which would later become University Avenue. In 1947, he donated 80 acres of his hunting property to Little Rock Junior College. In 1949, the college was able to leave its 14th Street downtown location for the new campus. In 1953, he sold 190 acres on the other side of Hayes Street to developer Elbert Faucett for the creation of Broadmoor, possibly the first suburban development in the United States, with all houses having central heat and air. His hunting lodge would become the neighborhood association's clubhouse.
In 1954, he bought for the zoo a second elephant — named Ellen, after his granddaughter — and gave the city of Little Rock $30,000 to build a municipal golf course near the Arkansas River that bears his name.
He was named to the board of the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission (Metroplan) in 1955, and in 1959, become the first president of the nonprofit Urban Progress Association Inc. to develop long-range plans for the city. He served on the boards of several other civic organizations, as well as large corporations. He married his second wife, Martha Jane, in 1957.
In 1966, he ran for governor in the Democratic primary, but came in sixth out of seven candidates. The general election went to Republican Winthrop Rockefeller.
He died in 1975 and is buried in Roselawn Memorial Cemetery in Little Rock.
Who was this civic-minded entrepreneur, to whom the city of Little Rock will be forever indebted?