Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

2908 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANSTifton, and he went there the year after the construction of the Brunswickand Albany Railroad and when all that section of Berrien County, nowTift County, was a pine forest.Mr. Tift possessed a breadth of view and foresight such as has not beenaltogether characteristic of the great lumber men in the United States. Hewas not content merely to work up the resources of standing timber and thenabandon the country to other uses. Long before the timoer was cut away helaid careful plans for developing the cut-over land and bringing in a desirable class of settlers. He organized and built some of the short lines of railroad which have contributed much to the upbuilding of South Georgia andwith the co-operation of the officials of the Georgia Southern & FloridaRailroad he planned the establishment of an agricultural experiment station.A thousand acres of land was turned over to the railroad company for use asan experiment station, and this proved a great boon to the country, and in ashort time it was demonstrated that many kinds of fruit and truck could begrown and that dairying and stock raising promised profitable revenue. Mr.Tift himself.began the planning of orchards and vineyards on his own landand with his enterprise as an example there was a general movement towardthe utilization of the agricultural possibilities.While these activities had so important a result in making Tifton a permanent city, they also had their influence on Fitzgerald, to which community Mr. Tift built the Tifton & Northeastern Railroad. Mr. Tift has developedand still has extensive interests in fruit farms' of many hundreds of acres,in the naval stores industry, and with many railroads, banks and manufacturing establishments.In 1896 he completed the Tifton & Northeastern Railroad, and was itspresident until the property was sold to another company. He establishedthe Bank of Tifton of which he is still president, and is also president of theTifton Cotton Mills, vice president of the Tifton Compress Company, vicepresident of the Tifton Farm Tool & Manufacturing Company, was presidentof a large grocery house at Tifton, and is still a director, is director of theGeorgia Southern & Florida Railroad Company, of the Tifton Cotton OilCompany, and is vice president of the Bankers Trust Company of Atlanta.He organized the Georgia-Florida Mill Company at Alton, Florida, of whichhe was president, and has been president of the Georgia-Florida SawmillAssociation since its organization. He is president of the Piedmont CottonMill, vice president of the Willing-Tift Lumber Company of Atlanta, andpresident of the Tift Silica Brick & Stone Company of Albany.For twenty-two years Mr. 'Tift served as a member of the city council ofTifton. It should also be recalled that during the Civil war he was an engineer on a Government transport. The success of such a man means more thanthe individual accumulation of wealth. Through his own prosperity he hasadded many millions to the wealth of South. Georgia and has been one of thechief factors in bringing about a wonderful transformation from a pine covered wilderness into a region of substantial homes, well developed farms andhighly cultured communities.He has enjoyed an ideal home life, and Mrs. Tift shared not only in themaking of the home but also in many directions of his active philanthropy.On June 25, 1885, he married Miss Bessie Willingham, daughter of ThomasWillingham of Albany, Georgia. To their marriage were born three sons:Henry Harding, Jr., Thomas Willingham and Amos Chapman Tift. H. H.Tift, Jr., who was born at Washington, District of Columbia, in 1886, is headof an extensive real estate and farm loan business; he married Miss VirginiaPont of Chattanooga, Georgia, and their one child is named Virginia Tift.Thomas Willingham Tift, the second son, born at Albany, Georgia, in 1889,has for several years been actively associated with his father in the sawmillbusiness. Amos C. Tift, who was born at Atlanta in 1892, is in the automo-