Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 2803the interests to which it is devoted, and has proved a valuable advertisingvehicle, owing to its wide and constantly increasing circulation, so that ityields very appreciable financial returns to the progressive publisher, who isrecognized as one of the progressive and essentially representative businessmen of the younger generation in the City of Atlanta.John Alfred Rasbury claims the Lone Star State as the place of hisnativity, but is a scion of old and honored families of prominence and influence in Georgia. He was born in the City of Lampasas, Texas, on the 14thof October, 1874, and is a son of Reuben L. and Nonnie L. (Brannon) Rasbury, both of whom were born and reared in Georgia, where their marriagewas solemnized. The father was a gallant soldier of the Confederacy duringthe Civil war, in which he served as a member of the command of Gen.Wade Hampton. His father, John Rasbury, was a well known and influentialcitizen of Fulton. County, Georgia, for many years, prominent in publicaffairs and associated with business interests in Atlanta; he served as sheriffof Fulton County prior to the Civil war. Alfred Brannon, maternal grandfather of him whose name introduces this review, was a leading cotton merchantat Columbus, Georgia, and was the owner and operator of the historic steamboat '' Nettie Quill,'' which ran the blockade of the Chattahoochee River duringthe war between the states of the North and the South, and thus succeeded inkeeping the City of Columbus supplied with necessary provisions. Theparents of Mr. Rasbury passed the closing years of their lives in Alabamaand Georgia.After due preliminary training in the public schools of Alabama, J. AlfredRasbury was matriculated in the University of Alabama, in which he wasgraduated. The major part of his independent career has been marked byclose identification with trade journalism. He was for some time editor andgeneral manager of the widely known industrial magazine entitled Dixieand for a considerable period he was general manager of a cotton trade publication at Charlotte, North Carolina. Upon his return to Atlanta he foundedthe monthly publication, Practical Machinist, a paper devoted to the industryof machinery construction, the title of the publication later being changedto that of Southern Machinery, and in 1914 it was consolidated with theTradesman ofChattanooga, Tennessee, where the joint publication has sincebeen issued as The Iron-Tradesman, He was one of the organizers of theW. R. C. Smith Publishing Company, of Atlanta, of which he continued toserve as secretary until 1906, when he resigned this office and severed hisconnection with the company, this action having been taken that he mightgive his attention to the founding and management of his present publication, Refrigeration, which has become one of the most successful and influential of Southern trade journals, its offices being at 803 Walton Building.On the 2d of June, 1898, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Rasburyto Miss Clara F. Langley, of Anniston, Alabama, and their pleasant Atlantahome is situated in the attractive district known as West End Park.B. R. TROTTER. Proof is not wanting but rather abundant, that neitherwealth nor influence are necessary in America to reach an honorable andindependent position in life, and also that success comes more readily whennatural inclination is given its way. Thus the well known journalist andpublisher, B. R. Trotter, editor and proprietor of the Advocate-Democrat,at Crawfordsville, Georgia, might have been disciplined into becoming a fairagriculturalist had he remained on the home farm, but it is reasonably certainthat he would have been a discontented one because all his inclinations directedto an entirely different field of effort. Had he not followed these naturalleadings, even with some hardships, Georgia would have lost one of its earnest,capable, influential newspaper men.B. R. Trotter was born at Cleveland, Georgia, November 4, 1889, and is