Commerce

Chattanooga capitalist and philanthropist John Thomas Lupton was born near Winchester, Virginia in 1862. Lupton received a law degree from the University of Virginia and settled in Chattanooga in 1887, following a visit to the home of a fellow student,…

The Maclellan Building in Chattanooga was built as the home office for Provident Life and Accident Insurance Company. Founded in 1887 in Chattanooga, the Mutual Medical Aid and Accident Insurance Company specialized in providing accident coverage to the "uninsurables"--miners, railroad…

A pioneer in the development of self-rising flour, self-rising corn meal, and later the packaged-mix southern hotbread, Martha White Foods has long been associated with country music and radio. In 1963 the company introduced the first in the line of…

Jack C. Massey, international businessman, was the first person to take three companies to the New York Stock Exchange. He was head of the Winners Corporation when it secured a place on the Exchange in 1984, having previously served as…

The Maxwell House Hotel, which once stood at the northeast corner of Fourth Avenue, North, and Church Street in downtown Nashville, was for years the center of Nashville's social and political life. Colonel John Overton Jr. built the hotel named…

Established in 1923, Mayfield Dairy Farms has evolved into one of the major southern milk and ice cream products companies. It began as an antebellum family farm in McMinn County that continued as a family-run business into the late twentieth…

As the creators and producers of Little Debbie Snack Cakes, O. D. and Ruth McKee transformed a small bakery into a terrific success that their two sons have turned into a business worth $770 million in annual sales. Before the…

West Tennessee land speculator John C. McLemore was born January 1, 1790, in Orange County, North Carolina. In 1809 he moved to Nashville, where he became a surveyor's clerk. Five years later, he succeeded his uncle William Christmas as surveyor…

Following the organization of cotton exchanges in New York (1870) and New Orleans (1871), Memphis cotton buyers pushed for an exchange in Memphis. Initial attempts to organize the institution failed, though, because most of the cotton factors feared that the…

Simply stated, "moonshine" is untaxed liquor, furtively produced quite often by the light of the moon, or at least out of the immediate reach and oversight of law enforcement. Nicknamed "corn likker," "white lightening," "white mule," "mountain dew," and numerous…

African American businessman and leader James C. Napier was born to free parents on June 9, 1845, in Nashville. His father, William Carroll, was a free hack driver and a sometime overseer. James attended the free blacks' school on Line…

The Nashville recording industry actually began after World War II, although there were several earlier events and factors that played a significant role in its success. During the 1920s and 1930s recording executives traveled across the country, making field recordings…

Chartered in 1896 by Richard H. Boyd and a group of black businessmen and fully operational by 1898, the National Baptist Publishing Board grew in the twentieth century to be the largest black publishing enterprise in the United States. Located…

While destined to become one of the top insurance companies in the nation, the National Life and Accident Insurance Company barely survived its first winter. C. A. Craig bought it for $17,250 on the Davidson County Courthouse steps on December…

Adolph S. Ochs, along with Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, helped lay the foundation of modern American journalism. He was born March 12, 1858, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Bavarian immigrants. His father, an abolitionist, and his mother,…

This Nashville entertainment and convention complex began in the early 1970s, when the National Life and Accident Insurance Company, the parent company of the nationally famous country music radio show the Grand Ole Opry decided to move the Opry from…

Z. Cartter Patten, prominent Chattanooga industrialist and capitalist, was born in Wilna, New York, and educated at Lawville Academy. During the Civil War, he served with the 115th Illinois Infantry and the 149th New York Infantry regiments. Patten first saw…

In September 1916, entrepreneur Clarence Saunders opened the first Piggly Wiggly grocery store in Memphis. Despite its funny name and the flamboyance of its founder, this new style of store was serious business. Nearly a century later, Piggly Wiggly and…

Within a year of his birth in 1892 in Tupelo, Mississippi, Abe Plough moved with his family to Memphis, where his father Moses operated a clothing and furnishings store. Abe Plough attended Market Street School where a teacher taught him…

The Proffitt’s department store chain was started by D. W. Proffitt in Maryville, Tennessee, in 1919. Son Harwell Proffitt opened another Proffitt’s in Athens in 1965, and the first Knoxville location opened in West Town Mall in 1972. The Proffitt…