As published by the Daily News Journal, Greg Tucker, Sunday, August 26, 2012
Andrew L. Todd, “A head taller than others, he wore a white, Panama hat … (and) tipped his hat to every lady… He was always outgoing, greets everyone.”
A shrewd attorney, businessman and politician, Andrew Lee Todd established his fortune and reputation in the years preceding World War I. Over the next two decades, he profited from every venture, except for two notable failures.
From 1913 to 1923 Todd served in the Tennessee General Assembly, two terms in the House and two terms in the Senate. As Speaker of the Senate in the 61st General Assembly, and Speaker of the House in the 62nd General Assembly, he is the only person in Tennessee history to have served in both capacities.
While Todd was Speaker of the Senate in 1920, the Woman’s Suffrage Amendment came before that body. Tennessee was the last state needed for ratification. The Senate vote ended in a tie and Todd as Speaker had the deciding vote. He voted for suffrage and the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified.
Although quite successful in his legal practice, business interests proved even more profitable. As “financial correspondent” for the Union Central Life
Insurance Company, Todd developed an innovative proposal to use insurance company reserves to make mortgage loans to farmers with a 30-year amortization. For the farmers, risk and interest rates would be significantly reduced. When his client, Union Central, showed no interest, Todd headed for New York.
At New York Life Insurance Company he convinced the company president (brother of Eleanor Roosevelt) to offer the mortgages. The new financial product was an immense nationwide success. As New York Life’s “farm loan correspondent” for Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland, Todd oversaw 50 employees and realized a substantial income.
With the profits of his land development and insurance ventures, Todd purchased and consolidated 800 acres between the Manchester and Bradyville Pikes and established Toddington Farms. Sparing no expense, Toddington Farms specialized in pure-bred Aberdeen-Angus cattle “of the highest perfection,” according to the owner.
In 1921, Toddington stock won “grand championship over all breeds” for cow and steer, respectively, at fairs in Louisville, Nashville, Chattanooga and Knoxville. The “Breeders’ Gazette” opined: “One may see in the Toddington herd many females of such merit and of such pleasing types as will challenge comparison with the tops of the breed anywhere.” At his first annual sale on Oct. 21, 1921, Todd realized almost $20,000 for 25 cows and heifers.
During the 1920s, Todd also purchased the leading Murfreesboro newspaper, The Home Journal, and built new offices for himself and the newspaper on West Main. (The building remains today at 218 West Main, Murfreesboro.) He eventually purchased the Murfreesboro Daily News and merged the two papers to form today’s Daily News Journal. During the Depression, Todd sold/leased the newspaper company to E.W. Carmack but eventually took it back through lengthy litigation concluding in January 1939. In 1941 he sold the newspaper to Jack McFarlin and the Mid-South Publishing Company.
Other business interests included the Murfreesboro Bank & Trust Co. which Todd oversaw as president from 1913 to 1929. He also served as president of the Murfreesboro Woolen Mills and the Consumers Supply Company. In 1926 he was a major investor and promoter in the campaign to build a major hotel in Murfreesboro. This effort resulted in construction of the James K. Polk Hotel. (This grand, small-town hotel was demolished in 1977. SunTrust Bank now stands on the East Main site between Spring and Academy Streets.)
Todd was also a principal in the Mutual Realty & Loan Co. which in 1923 published the “Handbook of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County Tennessee” extolling the virtues of the county with “not a line of paid advertising.” The handbook featured the Home Journal Publishing Company, the Murfreesboro Bank & Trust Company, Toddington Farms, and a full page “unpaid” advertisement for Andrew L. Todd, Inc., farm loan correspondent offering “millions of dollars for the farmers.”
Twice Todd began a campaign for the governorship and twice he withdrew before the Democratic primary balloting. In 1930 he ran in the Democratic primary against Cordell Hull for the U.S. Senate and some have suggested that he might have defeated the eventual Nobel Laureate were it not for the Shelby County vote controlled by Ed “Boss” Crump. But since the 1930 primary vote was 140,800 for Hull and 79,600 for Todd, a 64 percent landslide win for Hull, it is unlikely that the Crump machine “stole” the election.
This political defeat was the first real setback for Todd and was his last venture into politics as a candidate. It was not, however, his last attempt to sway public choices in his favor. In the midst of the Depression, both publicly and from behind the scenes, Todd guided a unified county effort to bring a major new employer to Rutherford.
Todd and others worked through the Murfreesboro Hospital Committee that had been organized by the various local governments and the Chamber of Commerce to organize and lead the county-wide effort to persuade the U.S. Veterans Administration to locate a new neuro-psychiatric hospital in Rutherford County. The committee was chaired by James L. Jetton, a close Todd ally.
On Nov. 18, 1936, it was formally announced that the new 350-bed, 400-employee hospital, would be built in or near Murfreesboro at a cost of $1,625,000.
Mayor W.A. Miles immediately appointed a citizens’ committee to plans a citywide holiday and celebration. On Nov. 30, however, the local newspaper headlined: “No Celebration of Hospital Here in Near Future, Jetton-Todd Group Override Mayor’s Meeting of Citizens.”
Although the decision had been made to put the hospital in the area of Murfreesboro, the specific site was still undecided. Moreover, there was a cry of “foul” when it was reported that Jetton and Dr. P.A. Lyon (the local college president) had made a “secret” trip to Washington to persuade VA officials to defer the final site selection in order to consider the merits of property owned by Todd.
When VA officials made their last inspection tour before announcing their decision, according to media reports, the favored site was the old Murfreesboro Country Club property owned by R.Y. Martin (now the Indian Hills golf course and subdivision on South Church Street). When the decision was announced, however, two “approved sites” were identified pending a final decision. The two were the Martin property and Toddington Farm, owned by A. L. Todd on the Manchester Pike.
The defunct country club was a victim of the Depression. Martin, a prosperous wholesale distributor for Gulf Oil and real estate developer, had only recently purchased the country club land and improvements. He was prominent in the local and state Democratic Party and served in the 71st General Assembly.
The bitter rivalry that ensued prompted VA officials to expand their consideration and at least seven other possible sites were identified for Murfreesboro’s new hospital. One of the more promising was the farm owned by Knox Hutchinson, president of the fledgling Middle Tennessee Electric Membership Corp., on the Shelbyville turnpike opposite the Martin property. Perhaps to avoid having to choose between the Martin and Todd properties, VA officials quietly offered Hutchinson $33,000 for his land.
“My father had owned the property for only a year, and was pursuing his dream of developing a modern and innovative model farm and home for his young family,” remembers Norman Hutchinson, youngest of three Hutchinson sons. The Hutchinson farm was not for sale.
Speculation continued to give an edge to the Martin property because it already had a swimming pool, golf course and railroad switch. Apparently recreational facilities for patients and staff were an important consideration. Additionally, the Martin property was thought to be somewhat more accessible for both construction and operation. In particular it was noted that a dam on the Stones River Middle Fork could form a convenient lake adjacent to the hospital for recreational fishing and boating.
Todd was determined the hospital be built on his land, and soon it was announced that the Works Progress Administration (Tennessee office) and the state game and fish department were considering a plan to dam the historic Black Fox Camp Spring Creek in order to form a lake on and adjacent to the Todd property for fishing and other recreational purposes.
It was further reported that the city would be asked to pay $65,000 to reroute Highway 41 down the Bradyville Pike so that the existing roadway could be widened as a boulevard into the hospital campus.
When the local site selection was finally announced in the spring of 1937, neither Todd nor his principal rival was chosen. The Veterans Administration acquired and consolidated it was on six privately owned tracts between the East Fork and the Lebanon Highway north of Murfreesboro.
Todd still built his lake which he described before his death in 1945 as a source of “water for cattle” and “a fishing hole.” Today the lake is surrounded by private residential property except for the Rutherford Boulevard crossing at the south end.
Greg Tucker can be reached at [email protected]