Who was the Rutherford County mortgage innovator?

Frow Chips, March/April, 2021, Greg Tucker, Rutherford County Historian

During the first half of the 20th Century, Andrew L. Todd was Rutherford’s most influential businessman, lawyer, educator, farmer, landowner, politician and socialite.

See “Rutherford Ramblings” (RCHS 2014), pages 125-8. In or about 1915, Todd developed an innovative proposal to use insurance company reserves to make mortgage loans to farmers with significantly reduced rates and risk for famers. He persuaded New York Life Insurance Company to implement the program with himself as exclusive
agent in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland. The program was an immense nationwide success. Todd’s Murfreesboro-based brokerage had fifty employees and realized a substantial income for its principal.

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