USA > Texas > The encyclopedia of Texas, V.1 > Part 61
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The Murphy-Bolanz Company is one of the oldest real estate firms in the city and the state, and has always enjoyed a successful business. The company does a general real estate business, including insur- ance, loans, rentals, leases and maps. The organiza- tion employs over thirty people, and the volume of business is probably larger than that of any other real estate concern in the city. The monthly sales amount to over $150,000, and collections are made from 1,500 tenants, aggregating over $100,000 per month. Several million dollars worth of leases were made and renewed last year.
Mr. Bolanz is a member of the Real Estate Board, the Chamber of Commerce, Cedercrest Country Club and is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner. His church affiliations is with the First Presbyterian Church. He is also a golf enthusiast.
Dallas has the greatest future it has ever had, he
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says, and is sure to be a big city. Opportunities are better here than any other place of its size in the country, he asserts, and Texas is rich with op- portunity.
ERBERT GAMBLE, 1215-16 Great South- ern Life Building, Dallas, founder of the R. H. Gamble Co., dealing in real estate and investments, has for the last eight years been one of the most aggressive leaders in realty circles that the fastly growing city of Dallas has had. In the million-dollars-a-week growth that this Texas metropolis has average for a number of years, the real estate business has enjoyed a large share for much of this sum has been in the increase in realty values. Mr. Gamble is at the center of this activity with his company, handling both business and resident property and leases on property as well. His present organization was effected in 1913.
Mr. Gamble is a native Texan, having been born at Mt. Pleasant, in Titus County, Texas, on July 30, 1879. His parents were Elisha H. Gamble and Eliza- beth (Armetta) Gamble. The public schools of Texas afforded the youth with his education in which Dallas had a part for when he was eleven years of age, in 1899, the family moved to Dallas. His busi- ness activity has been in several directions, he owned and operated the A. D. T. Messenger and Baggage System, he also was associated with the Dallas Trust & Savings Bank for a number of years prior to his present business activity. For the last three years with that institution he was in charge of their busi- ness property sales department, until 1913, when he established the R. H. Gamble Company.
On April 18, 1906, Mr. Gamble married Mary Gordon Flanary, they now have residence at 3928 Rawlins Street, Dallas. He is a Mason and a mem- ber of the Chamber of Commerce.
Dallas is a leading commercial center of the big Southwest, its growth has been rapid, yet steady and permanent. It is a city that decidedly has the for- ward look-new organizations and projects are being formed every day; its business men are big and they achieve things. The future is unexcelled in promise by any area of the United States; the present-day thrift and activity manifesting itself in investments and growth, will greatly increase in the next decade. In this investment business and growth, Mr. Gamble and his company will have a good part.
He believes that Texas, and Dallas particularly, offers the best opportunity afforded in any section of the country for the enterprising young man start- ing in a business career.
LBERT A. HEARTSILL, partner in the realty firm of Rucker, Heartsill and Jones, 1317-1319 Commerce Street, Dallas, located at the heart of a metropolis, has a large interest in the realty, leasing and insurance business of that city, both in down-town territory and in the residential sections. The firm of Rucker, Heartsill and Jones ranks with the few big organizations of Dallas in their line of work.
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Mr. Heartsill was born at Marshall, Texas, on April 22, 1886. His parents are Joseph E. Heartsill and Nannie (Love) Heartsill. Eastern Texas gave him his education, and immediately upon completing high school he entered the University of Business and Actual Experince where he has received his most practical training. He chose East Texas, his home section, as his place for beginning, where, among
friends and situations familiar to him, he spent the first twenty-eight years of his life. Here he tried his strength and developed his talents for business and by 1914, he had learned that his talents called for larger fields in which to operate. That year he accordingly moved to Dallas. He at once formed a partnership with Joseph B. Rucker and from 1914, the year of organization, Rucker & Heartsill, and later Rucker, Heartsill and Jones, have been among the most aggressive of Dallas realty firms. They handle residence and business property as well as leases and in this capacity have made themselves known to every section of the city in personal serv- ice rendered. Mr. Rucker is a member of the Kiwanis Club and is active in affairs civic as well as business circles of his city.
JASPER COLLINS, dealer in real estate, with offices at 917 Great Southern Life Building, Dallas, as a public servant and as chairman of a number of political campaigns has been an influential factor in the movement for better gov- ernment in Texas for the past quarter of a century. For the past ten years Mr. Collins has been engaged in the real estate business and has specialized in loans, sale of residence property and also in the building of honies on easy terms.
Mr. Collins was born near Carthage, Panola. Coun- ty, Texas, on the 18th of February, 1870. He is the son of John J. Collins, who saw service in the Confederate army and located in this state soon after the close of the civil war. The younger Mr. Collins received his early education in private schools and at Keadie College, near Mansfield, La., after which he became a student at the University of Texas, where he graduated in 1891 with a Bach- elor of Arts degree. The following term he took the two law courses at the University and was licensed to practice in June, 1892, by the Supreme Court of Texas. He located in Dallas and practiced his profession until 1894 when he returned to his home town, Carthage. In 1895 he became editor and proprietor of the Panola Watchman, one of the old- est weekly newspapers in Texas. He continued in this work for ten years.
Soon after leaving Carthage Mr. Collins became interested in politics and in 1899 was elected to the State Legislature. In 1902 he served as a presi- dential elector and cast his vote along with the other electoral voters of Texas for that year for the Democratic candidate, William Jennings Bryan.
He has always been an active prohibitionist and has actively participated in campaigns that finally resulted in prohibition for the entire country. Mr. Collins moved back to Dallas in 1908 and since that time has been engaged in the business as above stated. Mr. Collins' political activity has followed the line of helping his friends rather than that of seeking honors for himself. In the Guber- natorial campaign of 1916 he acted as chairman of the Speakers Bureau at Judge Ramsey's headquar- ters. In 1916 he was called upon by Senator Cul- berson's friends to direct the speaking campaign in the run off between Senator Culberson and Gover- nor Colquitt which resulted in Culberson's reelection to the senate.
In 1918 he served as chairman of the Speakers Bureau for Governor Hobby. During the war he served as chairman of the Speakers Bureau for the Second Liberty Loan drive.
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In February of 1907 Mr. Collins married Miss Gertrude James, daughter of Harry W. James of Memphis, Tenn. Mr. and Mrs. Collins are the par- ents of two children, Jasper Jr. age 13 and Whit- field James Collins, age two. In civic organiza- tions Mr. Collins is a member of the University Club, the Chamber of Commerce. He is a Shriner and belongs to all the Masonic organizations. He is a member of the Episcopal church.
HARLES A. MANGOLD, half-owner and general manager of the new sky-scraper, Jefferson Hotel, has an enviable record as being the individual who has provided Dal las with her highest class entertainments, of having brought more world-famed singers and artists to this metropolis than all other persons combined, as well as having founded most of Dallas' parks and being one of the leading philanthropists in the big developing Southwest. The Jefferson Hotel, the first skyscraper to greet the new-comer as he emerges from the Union Terminal and looks out across Ferris Plaza, has 450 rooms every one of which have private lavatories and toilet and 300 of which are equipped with individual bath rooms besides. Then there is a small ball room, cozy and attractive parlors, a dining room with capacity for 300 and, by no means least, the best equipped kitchens in Dallas. One hundred and twenty em- ployees are kept in constant service at this newest and one of the most attractive hotels of the South- west. But Chas. A. Mangold has finished up every- thing he has ever had anything to do with in just this tip-top style. E. W. Morten is part owner of this immense establishment. The cost of the orig- inal Jefferson, built in 1917, was $500,000. To this has been added in the last year and opened January 1, 1921, a million dollar addition, bringing the total cost of the building up to $1.500,000. Everything is fireproof.
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Mr. Mangold was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, October 31, 1860. Adam Mangold and Margaret Zittle Man- gold were his parents. His father was a wholesale merchant of Cincinnati and his mother died at the age of ninety-two, in her native city. Ohio gave Mr. Mangold his book education and his father, a man of big business, his practical training. He was connected with the liquor business in the earlier days and traveled in the North extensively as sales- man for fourteen years out of Lexington, Ky. He came to Dallas in 1885 where he began as a retail and wholesale liquor merchant. To trace his life history from this date is like writing a history of Dallas in miniature, so vitally has he been con- nected with every forward movement of the city. He was one of the originators and early directors of the Chamber of Commerce; most of Dallas' Club Houses have received his aid. He helped organize the state fair, of which he was vice-president and general manager of amusements and the race de- partment for that year and was instrumental in bringing to the fair the highest class of race horses that ever participated in a fair of the South. It was the turning point of the success of the state fair, ranking as one of the most profitable one held for 19 years. The Grand Order of Caliphs was started by this organizing genius, as well as Lake Cliff, the largest amusement park in the South. As park com- missioner Mr. Mangold has assisted in building the present park system. He was the originator of the idea of organizing the park board. He then turned
his attention to dramatic interests and in this ca- pacity he gave Dallas her best operatic shows and it was he who brought to the South in the early day many of the big opera singers. Mr. Mangold was a big factor in the building of the Oak Cliff million dollar viaduet and in the development of Oak Cliff as a great residence section of Dallas. At another time, Mr. Mangold was a raiser of fine horses and pure bred Angora goats.
Mr. Mangold is a director of the Dallas Trust & Savings Bank.
In 1889, Mr. Mangold married Miss Anna Honeck at Herman, Mo. They have four children: Lawrence, a sargeant in France for eighteen months and who was in four major battles besides many skirmishes; Charles, who was in the training camp at Waco at the time the armistice was signed; Irma, who now is Mrs. M. C. Abrams, and Olga, now Mrs. J. T. Cushing. Mr. and Mrs. Mangold reside at Zangs Boulevard and Colorado Street, in Oak Cliff.
The Elks, the Knights of Pythias, the Odd Fellows, the Eagles, the Sons of Herman and the T. P. A., have all laid claim to this distinguished citizen. Dallas reveres him as one of her greatest builders and philanthropists.
R. ELLIS, secretary and treasurer of the real estate and insurance firm of Williams & Ellis, Incorporated, 16081% Main Street, is vitally connected with one of the livest and biggest industries of a fastly growing city --- insurance and real estate. Dallas has a life-history of some sixty years, but most of this life-history has been made in a fourth or a fifth of that time and the rapid stride set in the last decade has meant big deals and many transactions in the real estate and this activity will be surpassed in each of the follow- ing decades for some time to come. The real estate business therefore is one of the most progressive of Dallas activities, and Mr. Ellis and his company are right at the heart of this business.
Dallas County is the birth-place of this business man; he was born there on March 5, 1879. His parents were James Henry Ellis and Mary Eliza- beth (Rawlins) Ellis who came to Texas in 1845, just as she became the Lone Star State. After com- pleting the school system of his home county, Mr. Ellis attended and graduated from the noted East- man Business College of Poughkeepsie, New York. He then returned to his home at Lancaster, Texas, where he began his business career in 1901, when he entered the employ of the Lancaster Hardware Company. In 1902 he accepted work with the bank of White & Company, as bookkeeper; in 1903 he came to Dallas to begin his affiliation with Trezavant & Cochran in the insurance business. Here Mr. Ellis found his natural element and in the insurance he has continued ever since. For five years he was with the company named above, where he diligently applied himself, studied and analyzed the success and methods of the big men he was associated with, and in 1908 he severed his connections with that firm to found a like business of his own with Thomas Brothers, but which firm today is Williams & Ellis, Inc. Mr. Ellis handles all of the insurance work of his organization. Aetna, the National Fire and the Queen Insurance Company are all represented by him, as are the British Underwriters and the Southern Surety Casualty Company.
On January 1, 1914, Mrs. Sara Bradford Smith became the bride of Mr. Ellis and they now have
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.: fetise at 3621 Lemmon Avenue, Dallas. Mr.
> is not only active in the commercial life of his , Av but in affairs social and civic as well; he is wember of the City Club, the Dallas Country Club, >> Chamber of Commerce, and is a Scottish Rite Kulon, a K. C. C. H., as well as captain of the ... in. Patrol and a Past Potentate of Hella Temple. In the big business life of the future of Dallas Mr. , will be a leader as he is active and successful an attractive degree today.
E VERETT R. LONG, president of the Union Realty and Securities Company, with of- fices at 808 Western Indemnity Building, Dallas, came to Texas from Chicago in . 4v. At that time he was employed by the West- 1 Casualty and Guaranty Insurance Company, a «herrn which later, on October 1, 1913, was taken .er by the Western Indemnity Company, a casualty « impany chartered under the Texas laws. Mr. Long «tered the new company and remained with that organization as secretary until it merged with Em- ¡loyers Indemnity Corporation of Kansas City, Mis- wouri. Believing that Texas offers great oppor- :anties for future development and for the further reason that he wanted to remain in Dallas with his friends and business acquaintances. Mr. Long ex- fets to make Dallas his residence and business headquarters.
On May 12, 1921, Mr. Long, with his associates, HI. S. Farmer and C. H. Austin, organized the Union Realty and Securities Company. The com- pany will do a general real estate and insurance business. H. S. Farmer and C. H. Austin are well known and successful business men of Dallas. The company will likely have offices in the new Mag- colia Building, upon its completion, as they have already made application for space.
Mr. Long was born in Indiana in 1877, the son of D. E. Long, a retired farmer. He attended the public schools of his native state and higher institu- sons of learning in Michigan. In 1903 he was mar- ried at Racine, Wisconsin, to Miss Marguerite E. Wirth. Mr. and Mrs. Long have two children: Jean Marie and Grace Elizabeth Long. Mr. Long .is a :number of the Dallas Automobile Country Club and Sons of the American Revolution. He resides at 313 Miller Avenue.
ENRY JAMES MARTYN was one of the pioneers of the mighty Dallas of today, and served it in a double capacity, as a leading druggist for a number of years and more "venitly as one of her active realty men. He came to Dallas in 1886, and thirty-five years ago the present-day metropolis was a "town." From the town stage to the metropolitan period much activity in many realms transpired. To this, Mr. Martyn was a witness and in a good part of it, a participant. Henry James Martyn was a native of Tennessee, he was born in Columbia of that state in the year 1-58. His father, Hon. Wm. R. Martyn, was a dis- : rguished judge and attorney of that state; his mother, Sarah Martyn (nee North) was a native of Pennsylvania. His boyhod and first years of man- Food were spent in his native state where also he vas educated in the best private schools. As the win of a judge and lawyer, he had literary and cultural advantages not generally enjoyed by all rt that day; of these he made the best. In 1886, he :««ponded to the call of the Lone Star State by locat- ing in Dallas from that day until the date of his 'rath, February 5, 1908, he was identified with Dal-
ias interests, and with Dallas leaders, in commercial cireles. Both lines of activity with which he was engaged, the drug business and the real estate busi- ness, have experienced great development in the twenty years of his work. No one phase of Dallas wealth has had a greater increase than have her realty values, these constitute the very vitals of the city of today.
Mr. Martin specialized in industrial properties and his greatest contribution to the development of Dallas was the erecting of many industrial concerns in this city and the assistance he gave the railroads in buying trackage and other facilities here. For several years Mr. Martyn was a member of Dallas City School Board and served as chairman of the building committee during the time that the many of the beautiful school buildings were erected.
In 1899, at Graham, Texas, Mr. Martyn and Miss Belle Graham were united in marriage. Miss Gra- ham is the daughter of G. A. Graham, deceased, former cattleman and real estate dealer in West Texas, for whom the present-day city of Graham is named. Her mother was Edmonia (Woolfolk) Graham, native of Kentucky. The parents located in Texas in 1872. Mrs. Martyn and three children by his earlier marriage, survive Henry James Mar- tyn. Mr. Martyn was identified with the Masonic order, with the Elks, the Knights of Pythias, and with the Dallas Fishing and Hunting Club. He was a congenial companion and liked by a multitude of friends. He was active not only in commercial af- fairs but in all moves that were for the civic better- ment and pride of Dallas. The Martyn residence is at 5103 Crutcher Street.
AMES EARTHMAN, head of the Earthman Realty and Loan Company, 212 Sumpter Building, has been a prominent figure in Dallas for a number of years and has always been identified with the growth and develop- ment of the city, contributing both service and money to all movements devoted to furthering the gen- eral welfare. His present business was established here in 1914, doing a general real estate business, making loans on city and farm property, buying, selling, etc. He expresses the opinion that real estate values will continue to advance and that the oil development of the state will greatly add to the future growth and advancement of Dallas, which he expects to double its population within the next ten years. There will be, he says, a "back to the farm movement" which will cause farm values to enhance, and with better farms, more "living at home" and greater production, he looks for an era of greater prosperity than ever experienced before.
Mr. Earthman was one year old when his father, L. F. Earthman, moved to Texas from Mississippi in 1879, and located in Grayson County, where the subject of this sketch received his education in the public schools. In 1902 he came to Dallas and worked eight years for the Liquid Carbonic Com- pany, dealers in soda fountain supplies, and front 1910 until coming back in 1914, he did commercial school work with Draughon's Practical Business College at San Antonio, Texas, and it was in this latter city that he was married to Miss Cooper, daughter of L. P. Cooper, a well known resident of that city. They have three children. Elizabeth, James and Katherine. He is a member of the Dallas Chamber of Commerce and the Texas Chamber of Commerce and a great booster for Dallas.
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RVILLE THORP, 303-8 Wilson Building, the Texas General Manager for the Kansas City Life Insurance Company, has directed in- surance in Texans lives at the rate of a million and a half to two million dollars a month for the last twelve months. This agency is writing more insurance than any other with this company. Prior to this twelve million dollars increase of the last year, the Kansas City Life Insurance Company was al- ready carrying $60,000,000.00 worth of policies for Texans alone. To do this work, Mr. Thorp has 350 agents scattered throughout the state.
It was in 1903 that this present day insurance giant first began his type of work. It is needless to say that he has stayed with it every day since. In 1904, he for the first time began his associations with the Kansas City Company. One year later, on May 12, 1905, Mr. Thorp came to Dallas, Texas as his firm's representative and opened up the Texas headquarters. He has toured every state in the United States but two, and has addressed fifty-eight sales congresses with a total attendance of each of 2,700. 1920 he was elected president of the Na- tional Association of Life Underwriters and served one year.
Orville Thorp was born in Indianapolis, Ind., on November 20th, 1875. Benjamin Thorp and Mattie Moss Thorp were his parents. The family moved to Missouri while the son was small and accordingly he was educated in the local schools at Independence, where they settled, at the State Normal College and then the University of Missouri where he did post graduate work. On August 1, 1906, one year after coming to Texas, Mr. Thorp married Miss Leona May Brown. They have no children. 4908 Lakeside Drive, is the residence.
A man of Mr. Thorp's Success has had social duties to perform. He is a thorough-going Mason, being a thirty-second degree, a shriner of Hella Temple, and a member of Chamber of Commerce, Y. M. C. A., City Club, Dallas Country Club, Automobile Club, a member and one of the international Trustees of the Kiwanis Club. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Dallas Street Railway Co. His church affiliation is with the Central Christian Church.
The immensity of an insurance business that aver- ages writing a million and a half to two million dol- lars a month in the one district which Mr. Thorp alone directs, is a reflection of the bigness of the man.
ARRY L. SEAY. Booster of Dallas and all Texas, president of the Southland Life In- surance Company, well known attorney and club man, is an accurate pen picture of Harry L. Seay, active executive head of the large life insurance company which owns the building bearing its name at the corner of Commerce and Browder streets. In addition to his duties as president of the Southland Life Company, Mr. Seay is a director in many other enterprises in Dallas and is ever to be found in the forefront of any activity that means bigger or better things for the city as a whole.
Prior to becoming identified with the Southland Life Insurance Company, he had fifteen years active law practice, during which time he made a special study of insurance problems and acquired a fund of knowledge and experience that admirably fitted him for the task of later building one of the state's
most representative insurance organizations. He was born at Gallatin, Tennessee, November 25, 1872, and his pre-legal training was received at Vanderbilt University. He later studied at Georgetown Uni- versity at Washington, D. C., and received his degree of Bachelor of Laws from that institution in 1894. Following his graduation he removed to Dallas and engaged in the practice of law and in 1896 formed the law firm of Seay and Seay, practising with his uncle, Hon. Robt. B. Seay, now judge of Criminal District Court No. 1 of Dallas County. In 1914 he became treasurer and general counselor for the Southland Life Insurance Company and a year later was elected president. He has seen the company's business expand from nine million dollars in 1914 to sixty-eight million dollars of paid for business in 1920. The company was organized in 1910 and now employs over seventy-five people and has over 250 agents operating in Texas, Arkansas and New Mexi- co. Plans are now being formulated to extend the business to other states. The Southland Life Insur- ance Company owns the twelve-story office building occupying a plot of ground 75 by 100 feet at the corner of Commerce and Browder streets. The build- ing is of reinforced concrete and brick construction, modern and absolutely fire proof.
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