Industry: Retail

James I. Harrison, Jr.

  • October 22nd, 2021

Jimmy Harrison got his start in the pharmacy business working as a soda jerk in his daddy’s drugstore.

Some five decades and 153 stores later, James I. Harrison, Jr., chairman, and chief executive officer of Harco Drug Incorporated, made the difficult decision to sell his $258 million company and bring to an end an incredible family tradition.

James Irving Harrison, Jr., a native and lifetime resident of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was born July 11, 1932, to James Irving Harrison, Sr., and Agnes Elizabeth Doherty. The young Harrison finished high school at age sixteen, then attended Baylor Prep School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for a year before accepting a basketball scholarship to The University of Alabama. After two years at Alabama, he then transferred to Howard College (now Samford University) in Birmingham to study pharmacy – and keep playing basketball. The university’s athletic department still lists Jimmy as holding the school record for most points scored (48) in a basketball game. He was an honors student, inducted into such societies as Rho Chi, Kappa Psi, and ODK, and it was during this time that he and Peggy Thomas were wed, May 30, 1954.

He and his bride returned to Tuscaloosa upon graduation in 1955, at which time his father, who had successfully owned and operated downtown Central Drug since 1941, purchased a second store. The senior Harrison turned over the keys to Druid Drug, located on the edge of the University of Alabama campus, to his son and gave him the freedom to run the operation. The stores used separate bank accounts, with Jimmy’s father managing the finances and paying the bills for both stores. Many years later the son would recount part of that experience to an Alabama business magazine.

“After he had a stroke, he was unable to manage the finances anymore,” Jimmy said, remembering. “I took over the books and discovered he was making me look good by paying some of my bills out of his store. I had thought I was so smart.” In the late 1960s James Harrison, Sr., retired, and James Harrison, Jr., took over the family business, which by then consisted of four stores in the Tuscaloosa area. Chain drugstores were then beginning to make an impact on the country, and, as Jimmy said, “We had to choose whether to get involved in this type of expansion or get eaten by it.”

He made the right choice.

Under Jimmy’s direction, the company began its expansion as a chain in 1969 with its first Harco Super Drug in neighboring Northport. Next came a store in Clanton, still in Alabama, but the first store outside of the immediate Tuscaloosa area. Again, Jimmy’s own words tell the story best: “Back when we first started, there were times when our cash position was very weak. We made the joke that every time we sold a pack of cigarettes, we made a deposit. In the early days, when we had six to ten stores, we opened three stores a year on a very small base of stores. We didn’t know what a risk that was.”

While Jimmy was building his company, which would grow to have stores in Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida, he and Peggy were also building their family. The two would have three sons, James I. Harrison, III, Ronald Patrick Harrison, and Kie Anthony Harrison; and two daughters, Rebecca Elizabethanne Harrison Fuhrman, and Cheryl Lynn Harrison Sisson. The family would grow further in later years, with the devoted father becoming as well a devoted grandfather to eleven grandchildren.

The company officer would also become more and more active in his role as a civic and industry leader. An active member of Holy Spirit Catholic Church, he served at various points as a board member for Hospice of West Alabama, West Alabama Rehabilitation, Druid City Hospital Foundation, and the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. He is a past director of the Tuscaloosa County United Way and Tuscaloosa County Heart Association, and a current director of the Tuscaloosa County Chamber of Commerce. He is also currently chairman of the President’s Advisory Cabinet at The University of Alabama and a member of the UA Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration Board of Visitors, and a member of the Samford University School of Pharmacy Advisory Board, as well as recipient of the 1987 Samford University Distinguished Service Award.

On the business front, he served as a board member for AmSouth Bank and Alfa Insurance, as past chairman of Affiliated Drug Stores and the Southern Drug Store Association, and on the executive committee of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores. Harco and Jimmy Harrison were named Employer of the Year by the Alabama Rehabilitation Association in 1996, Best Community Drug Store Chain 1995, and Retailer of the Decade (1990 award) by Chain Drug Review, as well as the 1986 Outstanding Small Drug Chain in the United States and America’s No. 1 Regional Drug Store Chain in 1996 by Drug Store News. He was recognized with a National Human Relations Award by the American Jewish Committee in 1997, the Bronze Oak Wreath Award for community contributions and involvement in 1990, and the Governor’s Volunteerism Award in 1989. He received the Alabama Gerontological Society Award for service to the elderly in 1986 and the Alabama Association of Elementary School Administrators Southeastern Award for contributions to education in 1996.

During the 1980s, Jimmy Harrison extended the family business to include a home health care business, Totalcare, with annual sales of about $6 million, which was sold in 1996 to American HomePatient; and Carport Discount Auto Parts, an automotive parts retail chain with forty-seven stores, which became a separate company in 1996. Even as the scope of the business expanded, however, Jimmy never forgot that operative word, “family.”

“We have always tried to run our business like a family, with a lot of interaction at all levels,” said the father whose five adult children all have roles within the operations. “Even though the family is much larger now we still strive to treat our associates with respect and with personal caring, just like you do in a family … keeping good people is very important in our business.”

But that business, one of tonics and powders and personal caring, is no longer theirs. In July of 1997, the announcement was made that Harco and New Orleans-based K&B would both become part of Rite Aid, in an acquisition estimated at worth $325 to $340 million. “I approached Jimmy Harrison,” said Rite Aid Chairman and Chief Executive Martin Grass, whose company is based in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. “He was not aggressively selling the business.”

As his family’s business was nearing its fiftieth anniversary some years ago, Jimmy Harrison commented that he was only “a small part of what has happened. If I can take any credit, it’s in putting together a group of talented people.”

That group of talented people would probably disagree. History will record Jimmy Harrison as a leader in retailing, in pharmaceuticals, and in the ranks of family businesses. And those who knew him well will remember best his devotion to family, both immediate and extended – very extended.

“He’s always referred to the company as an extended family,” said son James I. Harrison, III. “The people who have worked for him would probably describe my dad as more of a father figure than a boss – he’s a mentor, a teacher, a warm human being.”

Robert S. Weil

  • October 6th, 2021

Cotton is a small shrub that dates back nearly 7,000 years and was one of the earliest crops grown by European settlers, having been planted at the Jamestown Colony in 1607.

Weil Brothers-Cotton, the international cotton merchandising firm located in Montgomery, does not date back quite that far, but the company has been the king of the cotton industry for a long time. And Robert Schoenhof Weil, the company’s chairman and chief executive officer, has been a member of the firm’s top echelon for much of that time.

Born November 29, 1919, to parents Rossie Schoenhof and Adolph I. Weil, Sr., in Montgomery, Weil was the youngest of his parent’s four children. Robert Weil has risen through the ranks of his family-owned cotton firm to become one of the industry’s leading spokesmen, and he also is a noted philanthropist recognized by leading service groups for his continuous work and service.

His graduation in 1936 from Culver Military Academy was the beginning of an impressive education dossier. He entered Dartmouth College, where he received a bachelor of arts degree in 1940. Upon his graduation from Dartmouth College, Weil applied and was accepted to Harvard Business School where he received his M.B.A. in 1942.

After receiving his M.B.A., Weil fulfilled a commitment to his country as a second lieu­tenant, serving four years in World War II. During his time in the Army, he attended Command and General Staff School in 1945.

Following his discharge from the Army in 1946 he returned to his hometown of Montgomery to join Weil Brothers, a leading international raw cotton merchandising firm, which had been founded by his grandfather in 1878.

Continuing the family tradition, Weil and his older brother, Adolph “Bucks” I. Weil, Jr., became directors and officers of the company. At the start of their career with the company, Robert and his brother served as their father’s and uncle’s assistants and deputies while becoming increasingly involved in top-level decisions. Following their father’s death in 1968, Bucks became chairman and Robert president of Weil Brothers – Cotton, Inc. With the cotton industry valued at $4.5 billion, the brothers formed a holding company in 1980, Weil Enterprises and Investments, Ltd.

During this time, the brothers assumed corresponding roles with Bucks serving as president and Robert becoming chairman of the holding company. In addition to expanding their grandfather’s business around the world, Bucks and Robert were partners in Weil Hermanos, Inc., the Weil Selling Agency, and controlled the Swiss-based Unicosa. Robert has also served the company as co-chairman of the Board and chairman of the Executive Committee.

Weil also has been active in the cotton industry in several capacities. His first role in the industry came as the president of the American Cotton Shippers Association from 1963-64. He then went on to serve as director from 1962- 65 and 1973-74. He was also on the Board of Managers for the New York Cotton Exchange, director of the Atlantic Cotton Association, and a National Cotton Council delegate in 1963. Weil was also director of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange, the 1977-78 associate director for the Liverpool Cotton Association, 1978 delegate for the International Federation of Cotton and Allied Textile Industries. Weil continued his involvement with the cotton industry on a national level when he was named a 1963 delegate of the International Cotton Advisory Committee and the White House Conference on Export Trade Expansion.

Weil said the reason he is so involved in the cotton industry was that “you have to be active in everything and participate in what goes on in the business.”

Following his return to Montgomery in 1946, Weil became an active participant in civic and arts organizations. He became a member of the Jaycees and was named Montgomery Jaycees Outstanding Young Man of the Year in 1948. By the 1980s, Weil was more than just a participant in civic organizations; he was their initiator and chairman. Among the organizations, he has chaired is the Men of Montgomery industrial arm, and he organized and chaired the Montgomery Long Range Planning Council. In addition, he initiated a movement to include women and African Americans in the organization, which then became known as the Committee of 100. Weil was also a board member of the Alabama State Chamber of Commerce.

As a lifelong resident of Montgomery, Weil has been committed to making his community better by chairing organizations that benefit multiple groups of people. Among the groups Weil has supported is One Montgomery, a voluntary biracial organization dedicated to improving race relations in the community. He also participated in Leadership Montgomery and subsequently became a trustee of Leadership Alabama, all of which are dedicated to developing a cohesive leadership fabric in the Alabama community at large. Weil was also state chairman of Radio Free Europe, a key U.S. effort to break the East European Communist bloc.

Weil’s interest in charitable causes began in Montgomery as early as 1950 when he served as vice president of the Community Chest. Since then, he has been a board member of the local American Cancer Society and the Salvation Army He has also been active with United Way in various capacities and has played a vital role in its annual solicitations. Weil also was an original member of the Montgomery Area Community Foundation Board and was the Montgomery chairman for the United Negro College Fund. He also served on the board of the Eye Foundation Hospital of Birmingham and chaired the advisory board of St. Margaret’s Hospital in Montgomery.

His background gave him an appreciation for quality education, and he has been actively involved in educational institutions for much of his life. He has served as co-founder, president, board member, and board member emeritus of the Montgomery Academy Through his chairmanship of the Montgomery Long Range Planning Committee, he organized Blue Ribbon Committee on Public Education. The committee completed a special study of the Montgomery Public School system, which made several far-reaching recommendations to the County Board of Education. His activates were acknowledged with his election to the Alabama Academy of Honor.

Weil has also been devoted to Dartmouth, serving on the College Alumni Council, as area enrollment director, and working on the Annual Fund. He has served as trustee and trustee emeritus for more than 25 years for Wheaton College, his wife’s alma mater. And he has received the President’s Medal for his 20 years of service to Huntington College in Montgomery.

Weil has long been a lover of the arts and classical music. His wife, Virginia Loeb Weil, majored in art in college and is the former pres­ident of the Montgomery Museum. Weil, along with his brother Bucks, has enjoyed collecting fine art for many years. More than just collecting art, however, Weil fulfilled his wife’s dream of relocating the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts to a new and larger location with advanced facilities. He also was a member of the committee that launched Art Inc., a traveling exhibition of American corporate arc coast-to-coast and through South America. He also served as the first chairman of the Montgomery Business Committee for the Arts and is currently on the Board of Overseers of the Hood Museum of Dartmouth College.

As a young boy, Weil loved to listen to classical music with his mother, and that love is reflected today in his dedication to the Board of the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra and his service to the Overseers of the Board of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Weil has been active in the reform Jewish faith as a leader in congregational affairs at Temple Beth Or, where he served as a board member and president for two terms in the 1960s. He and his wife have three children, Virginia “Vicki” Weil, Rosalind W. Markstein, and Robert S. Weil II.

Robert Weil has had a long and successful career with Weil Brothers – Cotton Inc., but he also has left an indelible mark on his community and the arts.

Joel Anderson

  • September 28th, 2021

Joel R. Anderson is director and retired chairman of the Anderson Companies, which include Anderson Media Corporation and its Anderson Merchandisers subsidiary, the country’s largest distributor and merchandiser of pre-recorded music and a major distributor of books; TNT Fireworks, the country’s largest importer and distributor of consumer fireworks; Anderson Press, a major publisher of children’s books and associated children’s products; Whitman Publishing Company, the leading publisher of books and related products for coin collections, and Books-A-Million, the country’s second-largest book retailer.

He also currently serves as a director of Billy Reid, Inc., Elite Medical, Inc., Purchase Activated Apparel Technology, Inc., Performance Healthcare Products, LLC, Publicvine, LLC, Partscycle, LLC, and A-Mark Precious Metals.

Together the Anderson Companies employ more than 17,000 people throughout the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and China.

Anderson was born and raised in Florence, Alabama where he attended the University of North Alabama. He has spent most of his life in the family-owned business established by his late father, Clyde W. Anderson, which evolved from a street corner newsstand.

Anderson has been an active civic and community leader, particularly in efforts to improve lives through education.

He has served his community as director and chairman of the board of Riverhill School and as a board member of the Riverhill School Foundation, as a director of the Shoals Chamber of Commerce and the First National Bank, as chairman and founder of the Florence Lauderdale Library Foundation, as chairman of the Shoals Literacy Council, as a director of the YMCA and the Florence-Lauderdale Industrial Expansion Committee.

He also has served as founder, chairman, and director of the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory and as a trustee of the Cardiovascular Institute of Philadelphia. He is on the board of directors of Trump Tower and serves as trustee and president pro tern elect of the University of North Alabama Board of Trustees. Anderson is a board member of the Alabama Bicentennial Commission. He also is a major supporter of the Salvation Army, the United Way of Northwest Alabama, the Florence City Schools Foundation, the Florence Library Foundation, the Children’s Museum of the Shoals, the American Heart Association, the New York City Police Athletic League, and is a charter member of the Norman Swarzkopf Society.

He was chairman of the 2005 Donald Trump Library Benefit Dinner, which raised more than $400,000 for the Florence-Lauderdale Library Foundation.

His philanthropic, civic, and humanitarian activities have been recognized by the Anti-Defamation League which honored him with its Distinguished Service Award on behalf of human rights, and by Brandeis University with its National Distinguished Community Service Award. In 2003 he was the first recipient of the 25 Year Club Frank Herrera Award, a prestigious national magazine industry award and in 2006 was named Shoals Citizen of the Year. Earlier this year, Mr. Anderson received the Lifetime Achievement in Innovation award from the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama.

He and his wife Carmen have a daughter, Kristen, and a son, Joel II. Mr. Anderson’s daughter Ashley has a son and two daughters.

Emil Carl Hess

  • September 22nd, 2021

Emil Carl Hess, Chairman of the Board of Parisian, Inc., headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, has been described as a “person who looks beyond himself … a person who has a high regard for people,” both in his business and personal life.

In helping guide Parisian from a small women’s specialty store in Birmingham to Alabama’s leading fashion specialty store for men, women, and children with stores throughout the State, he has always felt that “we may not be all things to all people, but we try … it’s our responsibility.”

In his personal life, he has always exhibited “a constant desire to see a general improvement in the quality of life in the community,” and “a sensitivity to need and the challenge it presents.”

Emil C. Hess was born on April 6, 1918, in Memphis, Tennessee, to Carl and Nettie Schwartz Hess. In 1920, the family moved to Birmingham, Alabama, after Carl Hess and William Holiner of St. Louis, Missouri, had purchased The Parisian – then a 25-foot outlet specializing in lower-priced women’s apparel, millinery, and piece goods.

Emil Hess grew up in Birmingham. He attended South Highland Grammar School and Ramsay High School. After graduating in 1935, he majored in accounting and insurance at the Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated with a B.S. degree in Economics in 1939.

Returning to Birmingham, he assumed an active role at The Parisian which had moved to its present downtown location, and which had added men’s and boys’ apparel to its stock.

In 1941, Emil Hess married Jimmie Seidenman of Washington, D. C. In that same year, he began serving in the U.S. Navy, where he achieved the rank of Lieutenant Commander before his discharge in 1945. The Hesses subsequently had one daughter, Jo Ann, and one son, Donald.

Emil’s father, Carl, had been “minding the store” since before the war, for his partner William Ho liner had retired in 1940. In 1945, Emil Hess and Leonard Salit (Mr. Holiner’s son-in-law) began operating The Parisian. Though Emil’s father remained at The Parisian until his death in 1956, he gave these two veterans free rein to implement changes.

The young men decided that The Parisian would have to change its image if it were to grow. Instead of being known as a budget store specializing in lower-priced merchandise, it would have to become known as a brand name store offering quality goods and services. They built up its stock of brand merchandise while retaining its interest-free credit policy. This two-pronged attack, plus the “special” services such as free gift wrapping and free mailing to any place in the 50 states – were instrumental in moving Parisian toward becoming the primary family clothier in Alabama. The first branch stores of Parisian were built in 1963 in Birmingham and in Decatur; by 1984, there were stores in Huntsville, Montgomery, Mobile, Tuscaloosa, and Florence – making total square footage for Parisian almost 310,000.

In 1972, after the death of Lenny Salit, Emil Hess’ son Donald (a graduate of Dartmouth) became directly involved with the management of the company (he became active operating head, as President, in 1977). In 1976, the Hess family acquired the Holiner interest in the company and continued to operate it as a family-owned company until 1983. To finance the continuing, planned expansion of Parisian, the company went public, with its common stock first sold in the over-the-counter market in November of that year. By 1987, when Parisian celebrates its 100th anniversary, there will be more stores underway in Alabama and Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee.

“You’re Somebody Special” is the message that Parisian has been communicating to customers and associates in Alabama throughout its history. This business philosophy of management has been reflected not only in the increasing quality of goods and services in the stores but also in the company’s and its associates’ contributions to community life.

For example, Parisian, Inc. holds Diaper Derbies, the proceeds of which go to children’s charities. It has sponsored fashion shows for support of worthy projects, such as Linly Heflin Scholarships for Alabama girls who might not otherwise afford college.

Parisian has also provided funds for the Hess Institute of Retailing at The University of Alabama and The Hess Institute of Arts and Humanities at Birmingham Southern. Grants and contributions are made to UAB; Auburn, Montgomery; Auburn University, and other institutions of higher learning. Parisian also provides internships for 30 to 40 high school and college students each year. Parisian was the 1985 recipient of The University of Alabama Chapter’s Beta Gamma Sigma Firm Award, presented in recognition for the most outstanding in community service in Alabama.

For the last seven years, Parisian has recognized its associates on the selling floor and behind the scenes at a Standards of Excellence Banquet. And for the last seven years, the Emil C. Hess Humanitarian Award has been presented to associates who have given freely of their time and expertise to the community through volunteer work and civic involvement. As Emil Hess has said, Parisian is excellent because of its people – “our people are our most precious asset.”

Emil Hess, as an individual, has played an active role in improving the quality of life in the community. He has been “unselfish of his time, energies, and money,” perhaps because “he judges his happiness by the community’s success.”

He has served as president of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, the Jefferson County Community Service Council, and the Greater Birmingham Safety Council. He has served as co-chairman of various divisions of United Appeal, United Jewish Appeal, the United Way Drive of Jefferson, Walker, and Shelby Counties, and various other civic and community boards.

He has also served as president of the Birmingham Festival of Arts, the Greater Birmingham Arts Alliance, and the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He was Chairman of the “Goals for Birmingham” Committee. He was appointed by the Alabama State Superintendent of Education as Chairman of the Alabama School of Fine Arts for 1975-1979. In 1983, he and Mrs. Hess endowed the principal’s chair in the cello section of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra.

Throughout his life, Emil Hess has assumed certain leadership jobs in the community, because, as he has said, ‘Tm perceptive enough to see where I think there is a need and rally around the forces.”

Emil Hess has received many well-deserved honors. In 1978, he was named the Birmingham Young Men’s Business Club “Man of the Year.” In 1979, he was awarded a Doctor of Humanities degree by the University of Alabama in Birmingham; in 1984, a Doctor of Humanities degree by Birmingham Southern College; and in 1985, inducted into the Alabama Academy of Honor.

Parisian continues to contribute to the quality of life in Birmingham and the State. And, Emil Hess, the cheerful man who says almost everything with a smile, is still helping to make sure that the citizens, “see flowers and trees in the spring,” without tripping over the “cracks in the walks.” He is still helping to remove the obstacles to the best quality of life in the community.

Louis Pizitz

  • September 9th, 2021

Louis Pizitz, a part of the great migration of Jewish immigrants to the United States in the late 1880s, longed to be free from the restrictive laws that had led to the poverty of the Jews of Eastern Europe.

Pizitz arrived in New York in 1889 and soon took out naturalization papers and married Minnie Smolian, a former resident of Poland. Pizitz began his career as a peddler, and his experience taught him lessons he never forgot: buy wisely, sell honestly, know your customers and treat them with dignity. The panic of 1893 and the lure of a developing metropolitan area drew him to Birmingham in 1897. With a few hundred dollars, he rented a small building on First Avenue North and opened his store with eight employees. Pizitz was successful in Birmingham. He often shared his good fortune with others. In 1915, thousands of coal miners and their families faced starvation in the midst of labor strife. Pizitz sent truckloads of food and clothing to the mining communities. During World War I, he headed numerous Liberty Bond drives. Pizitz weathered the Great Depression, and in 1937, his store had grown to 74 departments and 600 employees. Pizitz was a pillar in the Birmingham Jewish community and was a founder of the Temple Beth-El. In 1948, he won the Good Will Award of the National Conference of Christian and Jews. In Birmingham’s Centennial Year, Louis Pizitz was chosen one of ten leading businessmen in the city’s history.

Benjamin Russell

  • September 9th, 2021

Benjamin Russell was the origin of all things Russell, in Alabama today.

Born on a small farm in rural Tallapoosa County Alabama, exactly 100 years after 1776, Ben Russell’s genealogy traces back to Richard Russell of Westchester County, England, in the 14th century. Beginning in 1603 the lineage traces on through the church records of Ipswich County and London and finally, around 1750, James Russell crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Charleston, South Carolina. His son John Russell fought in the War of Independence. The family slowly migrated through Georgia and into Alabama.

B.F.C. and Bettie’s son, Benjamin, was “a dedicated and hardworking young man” and eventually worked his way through the University of Virginia, graduating in the spring of 1899 with a law degree.

Following his marriage in November 1899 to Roberta Bacon McDonald, Benjamin Russell practiced law in Birmingham for a few months. When his father, B.F.C., suffered a paralyzing stroke in early 1900, Benjamin returned to Alexander City to manage the family business. In the same year, at the age of 24, he founded the Citizens Bank of Alexander City, which in 1904 became the First National Bank, then Aliant Bank, the predecessor to the present-day Valley Bank System.

In April of 1902, Ben Russell founded Russell Mills in a 50 x 100-foot wooden building with six knitting machines and ten sewing machines. The new company purchased yarn for the knitting machines, which made the cloth for the cut and sew operation. The company’s first garment was a ladies and children’s knitted shirt, produced at the rate of 150 a day. Tragically, on Friday, June 13, 1902, the entire business district of Alexander City, including Citizen’s Bank, burned.

Mr. Ben did not confine his efforts to rebuilding his bank. The pioneering spirit of his lineage allowed him to quickly shake off the effects of “the great fire” and take a bold, new leap.

Young Ben Russell was quite adept at most practical applications of his ingenuity, but in those early days, success in such a fledgling business was difficult. It soon became apparent that each garment cost several cents more than it could be sold for. He met with his employees and in a heart-to-heart talk, the matter of quantity and quality of production was discussed. Following a grim “we succeed, or we fail together” declaration, they came away with an even stronger resolve. Hard work and innovation were Ben Russell’s greatest assets and these as well as a thousand other problems were ultimately solved.

In 1908, the ladies and children’s shirts went out of style and Russell changed its product line to ladies’ step-ins or teddies. Thus, the first change in what would become a constant flow of designs and garments to meet customer demands, from underwear to dress, casual, active, and athletic wear, under the Russell Athletic brand.

In the spring of 1902, “Mr. Ben,” as he was called by all, built a telephone line from Dadeville through Alexander City and on to Sylacauga, establishing the first telephone service in Alexander City. The first exchange placed twenty telephones in service through a switchboard located in the basement of the First National Bank. This business venture later was sold to Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph on February 24, 1904, for $15,250 – a significant sum in its day.

In 1911 the banker and cotton miller needed electrical power for his little mill and he began construction of a dam at Buzzards’ Roost Shoals on the Tallapoosa River, about five miles northeast of downtown Alexander City.

Alabama Power had, however, begun preparation for the massive Martin Dam project farther downstream. This impoundment would flood Mr. Ben’s site.

The old tales paint a picture of a sophisticated gentleman, briefcase in hand, calling on Mr. Ben at the construction site of his dam.

The story goes that Mr. Martin introduced himself as an attorney representing investors who had acquired the riparian rights (only) to the entire river valley.  The obvious message would have been that the small, new facility would soon be below the level of the huge, new Lake Martin, to come.

Knowing the gentlemanly nature of the two – actual facts were most likely replaced at this point by pure humor.  Allegedly, Mr. Ben informed Mr. Martin that he too was an attorney and that it would appear that they were standing on Mr. Ben’s property while discussing Mr. Martin’s visions!

We must hasten, at this point, to say that this version could not have been technically correct, for the two men became lifelong friends and worked tirelessly, together to bring us to the incredibly fortuitous point that we enjoy today.

According to Thomas W. Martin, Chairman of the Board of Alabama Power Company, Mr. Russell was the “moving spirit” behind his new Industries Light Power Company. After much negotiation, Mr. Russell sold this power project to the Interstate Power Company, which became Alabama Power Company in 1920.

In the words of Martin, “the broadminded Russell recognized the greater public benefit of the complete development of the power of the stream.  A satisfactory agreement was therefore reached with Russell for purchase of his Industries Light and Power Company and for supplying his enterprises with power through a very favorable power franchise.” Most importantly, however, Mr. Ben promoted a personal friendship and an agreement with Martin that would lead to the purchase of a significant portion of the 880 miles of shoreline property of the new lake.

Ben, like his forefathers, remained “close to the land” and he continued to develop the family farm – the pioneering spirit seems to have continued to evolve. He ultimately combined some of the land acquired from the Alabama Power Company with the family farm – in the 1930s this comprised 30,000 acres of farm and timberland on the shores of Lake Martin.

Following the founding of Russell Mills/Russell Corporation in 1902, Mr. Ben was quick to build a church for the people that were moving into the new Russell mill village. The church was a typical white structure with wood columns, offering Methodist and Baptist services on alternating Sundays – the two preachers and one congregation system seemed to work just fine, over the years.

Mr. Ben realized the need to provide education for his employees and their families and in the fall of 1917, he brought into the organization Professor R.Y. Scott to establish the Russell Mills School and hold classes in the Russell Mills church building. By 1924 the school had outgrown the church facility and a new school building was built. In 1927 the Russell School became a part of the Alexander City School System offering grades kindergarten through ninth.

The mill village grew to 350 or so houses but beginning in the late 1950s residents were encouraged to purchase property in Springhill Subdivision that had been made available and build their own home. By mid-1960 the “old mill village” had been replaced by the ever-expanding “cotton mill.”

In addition to all the mill and bank-related interests, Mr. Ben began buying or creating other businesses. In 1916 he opened the Alex City Wholesale Grocery business in the area of the present-day fire department and the former Outlook newspaper office location. Mr. Ben became owner and operator and Mr. I.C. Kelley was appointed manager. This grew into a very successful operation and by 1941 consisted of two plants with twelve buildings and over one hundred employees.

In 1920 Mr. Ben purchased the Nolen Hotel, formerly the Alabama Hotel, from Leon Nolen and changed the name to the Russco Hotel. The name was later changed to the Russell Hotel. The Hotel was located on prime property across from the railroad station in Alexander City and the dining room became the in-place in Alexander City.

In 1923 Mr. Ben built a hospital for the rapidly growing community. Russell Hospital, which was located on Lee Street, began operation with thirty-five beds and provided equipment for surgery and general inpatient care. Throughout its 41 years at the Lee Street location, many additions were made to the hospital as the town and mills continued to grow. In 1964 the Russell Hospital built a modern facility on Highway 280. Today the continually expanding Russell Medical Center is a progressive medical complex, serving several communities.

In 1923 Ben Russell completed a dam across Elkahatchee Creek, located three and one-half miles south of downtown Alexander City. He built a pumping station, pipeline, filter plant, and waterworks system that would supply the entire town until 1947, and the Russell Mills and Russell mill village until the early 1980s. For many years thereafter stories of the difficulties of digging the three-mile-long pipeline ditch by hand were legendary.

The early 1920s were outstanding years for Florida land and real estate speculation. Mr. Ben, the opportunist, purchased a hotel in Coral Gables, Florida. This would have been a very rewarding venture had it not been for the stock market crash of 1929. Florida’s real estate boom did not begin again until well after World War II.

In 1918, the young Russell purchased the Alexander City Manufacturing Company, a “millwork” or woodworking industry, with a likely predetermined objective. Prior to the completion of the “New Electric Dam,” as it was called locally, much of the 41,150-acre footprint of Lake Martin had to be cleared of “old-growth timber,” huge three to five-hundred-year-old longleaf pines as well as the tremendous hardwoods.

Seeing the potential of this operation, Mr. Russell and J.M. Steverson purchased a standard gauge rail locomotive, laid the railroad lines, and began operating the Pine Lumber Company railroad in 1916. The tracks terminated in Alexander City at the sawmill and lumberyard of Mr. Ben’s newly acquired woodworking industry.

Mr. Russell’s farming interest came from his family background, but the extreme degree of this interest has never been explained and was one of the few areas of his business ventures that could have been deemed to be not entirely logical. Land and timber alone were not challenging enough for Ben Russell, so in 1926 he formally created Dixie Farms. This was during the time Martin Dam was being constructed. This family farming business was actually managed by Mr. Ben and his brother, Thomas C. Russell, from their offices in the First National Bank in Alexander City. Thomas C. became Mayor of Alexander City in 1907 and served until 1947.

Ben Russell, always the entrepreneur, was intent on promoting farming and other productive lifestyles for the people of this most rural area of East Central Alabama. He called on his bank to cooperate in setting up a number of innovative, financial vehicles to help the cash-poor farming families set up their own ventures. The land was made available, mules were purchased, seed and fertilizer provided, and supervision offered, along with cooperative purchasing and marketing arrangements.

There were many categories of this cooperative-type venture – “one-horse (or one-mule) farms” and “two-horse farms.” Usually, one family of 3-4 would be allocated one “horse.” Cotton was the primary crop, early on. A bale of cotton would then sell for $25 and a one-horse farm could produce 4-5 bales a season.

Mr. Ben’s new farming venture, like the bank and the textile mill, was quite successful in those years and for an extended period, approximately 100 families made their livelihood on the Russell farmlands surrounding the small settlement of Dixie. The primary crops were cotton, corn, and peanuts. Later, cattle were also raised on this land. This “close to the land” thinking surely saved many a family from destitution during the harsh years of the Great Depression in the Deep South.

With the help of George Washington Carver, better farming techniques and the use of advanced, hybrid seed stock were promoted on Dixie Farms. In 1928 a successful experiment was undertaken. Ben Russell set aside 3,000 acres to provide for the production of long-staple cotton in east Alabama. These endeavors required much vision and commitment. A cotton gin, for example, had to be built at Dixie Farms.

The first farm superintendent, or overseer, of Dixie Farms, was Mr. Arthur Worthy for whom the farm church, Worthy’s Chapel, and the school were named. The church is now the Russell Farm Baptist Church. Dr. McElroy Dean, a local veterinarian, became farm superintendent of “Dixie” and remained until 1937 when Mr. Russell Ballard was appointed. Mr. Ballard, who had served as assistant superintendent when he joined Dixie Farms on November 20, 1933, became superintendent in 1937 and served in that capacity until his retirement from Russell Lands in December 1974. Mr. Ballard’s assistant, Rudolph Evans, served as head forester for Russell Lands until 1982.

“Dixie” was the central location of the old Dixie Farms, which later became the Russell Farms operation. Previously the site was home to the old Benson Dixie Industrial Company. Dixie, now Russell Crossroads, was located on the present Highway 63 just north of Windermere Road. The fields, barns, and farmhouses are gone now, along with the sawmill, turpentine mill, cotton gin, charcoal plant, blacksmith’s shop, log pond, railroad, dairy, and superintendent’s house.

During the early days of Dixie Farms, Lake Martin began to fill and Mr. Russell spent time and resources on controlling the erosion problem. It was then predicted that within 50 years the entire lake would fill with the silt washing in from the surrounding farm fields.

During these years, most small rural farms in the southeast were being abandoned to erosion and the general population shift. Even Dixie suffered the same fate as time and morays took their toll. Today it is hard to imagine that farmers, then, had no clue that their life-giving topsoil would soon be totally depleted. Mr. Ben’s solution was the promotion of an all-out war on erosion. His efforts were immense; the resulting terrace and drainage patterns covered virtually every acre of land and are still quite visible in the dense forest of today. The scope of this undertaking is evident now, however, only with the realization that the individual farmer completed these features by his own hand, with the aid of the loyal old horses and mules. Sad to relate, most of the effort was just in time for the latter days of the small farms of the South.

Fortunately, Mr. Ben’s obsession with the land provided a young forest that would in time cover the land and promote the slow process of healing the scars of “progress.” His tree planting enterprise was, however, considered to be “fool-hearted,” in those days as, “The Alabama Power Company had just cleared and sold, burned, tied down or given away timber covering much of the 44,000 acres of land covered by Lake Martin.” Fortunately, Mr. Ben had a broader goal in mind and the old rock-strewn, red clay moonscapes of that abandoned way of life have generally recovered.

Farming was a great love of Mr. Ben but today few people realize that he was looking “a mile down the road” by acquiring all of his land, based on its relationship to Lake Martin. Company property maps and records clearly show that lake frontage, not farmland, was his ultimate goal while others complained about Lake Martin and worried about malaria. Mr. Ben could scarcely believe his good fortune – “to have a gigantic lake dropped on top of us.”

Mr. Ben believed that recreation was the wave of the future and that Lake Martin was our key to this future. He had been a charter member and officer of the Alexander City Development and Industrial Club upon its organization on April 29, 1901. He was instrumental in organizing the Commercial Club of Alexander City in 1910, which in 1920 was reorganized as the Chamber of Commerce of Alexander City, where he served as the local organization’s president from 1910 to 1937. He was the driving in establishing the Alabama State Chamber of Commerce, and became its first president, serving for three years – from June 11, 1937, until the summer of the year before his death.

Mr. Ben was one of the pioneers of good roads in Alabama. He organized and was elected President of the Florida Short Route in 1920. This group was devoted entirely to the promotion of tourist travel. He was responsible for bringing the “Florida Short Route” through Alexander City and served as president of the organization until his death. He also opened the first subdivision on Lake Martin, the Lake Hills Subdivision, on March 27, 1928. The Boulder Club, also built in 1928, had a “proper” dining facility and a huge ballroom. The Boulder Club was considered the place for social activity in Alexander City.

In 1940, Mr. Ben was among several industry leaders, principally his friend Tom Martin, who organized the Alabama Research Institute for the purpose of promoting scientific research in the use of local raw materials in the manufacture of finished products. Later the name was changed to Southern Research Institute when the organization’s geographic area of interest broadened, and it began attracting people from throughout the South. It grew to have research facilities in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and Frederick, Maryland. In 1999 Southern Research Institute merged into a University of Alabama at Birmingham research program.

Mr. Ben had been ahead of his own time and with the coming of the second half of the century, long after his death, the greatest asset of Mr. Ben’s “closeness to the land” began to come to fruition – the appeal of the shoreline property to a slightly more affluent population. This “affluence” might have only been the ability of a textile worker to spend two or three hundred dollars to tear down an old mill village or tenant farmhouse and rebuild it in the form of a fishing cottage on lakefront property provided by the company. This affluence was also exemplified in the form of a banker from Birmingham paying $25/mo. for a “cabin” reconstructed by the farm crews. Thus, went the old tenant farmhouses and many of the 350 or so Russell mill village houses that were torn down during the late 1950s. Of far greater importance, however, this phenomenon signaled an era of solid proof that “The Old Man” could, in fact, “talk to you while looking over your shoulder, 100 years into the future.”

A typical example of Mr. Ben’s enthusiastic management style was told by Carl A. Swanson, who was traveling by train from Chicago to Florida when he happened to sit by Mr. Ben Russell somewhere north of Alexander City. By the time Mr. Ben reached home, he had persuaded Mr. Swanson, a highly educated and skilled electrical engineer, to spend the night and tour his mills the next day. Missing his train to Florida the next day, Mr. Swanson called his employer and turned down his promotion and a new position in Florida.

This and innumerous other examples of the man’s dynamic style prove that, in part, his success was due to the realization that even he could not make all of the decisions. He knew that he needed help in managing his varied enterprises.

During his lifetime Mr. Russell, the young man from a farm in one of the poorest and most rural areas of the South, had created a bank, a textile mill, a development potential of hundreds of miles of prime shoreline, an entire farming community, a mill village, church, school, hospital, a phone company, a municipal water supply, a foundry, a woodworking industry, a hotel, a dairy, a bakery, a soft drink bottling company, a laundry, a wholesale grocery and founded the State Chamber of Commerce.

The passing of “Mr. Ben” on December 16, 1941, brought great uncertainty to the rural community and many pondered the future of his vast and varied enterprises. Changing times and lifestyles soon caught up with the farming venture but the land remained. The farming interest had given purpose to the land for years, but its real value soon emerged.

Upon Mr. Ben’s death, the Benjamin and Roberta Russell Educational and Charitable Foundation was created from his estate to continue his philanthropic works. Each year millions of dollars are given in his memory through scholarships, endowments, and grants to various educational and charitable causes.

He was further memorialized by the dedication and naming of the Benjamin Russell High School on September 4, 1950. His son Robert enabled the city to enjoy tremendous savings by personally supervising the building of the new high school.

Biographical information provided by Russell Lands History.

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