Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

3012 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANSCompany, which controls the telephone service of the Southern states andwhich bases its operations upon the enormous capital of $65,000,000. Noneother than a man of sterling character and great ability could be called to serveas chief executive of such a great corporation as this, and the official preferment which he thus holds marks Mr. Gentry as one of America's true captainsof industry, even as he is a representative citizen and man of affairs in Atlantaand the State of Georgia. He is a scion of patrician Southern stock and anative of the historic Old Dominion Commonwealth, within whose graciousborders his ancestors settled in the early colonial era of our national history,and with the annals of which the family name has been most prominently andworthily identified.William Thomas Gentry was born at Gordonsville, Orange County, Virginia,on the 14th of April, 1854, and is a son of John R. Gentry, who was for manyyears one of^the most honored and influential citizens of that county, wherehe served for a, full quarter of a century as mayor of Gordonsville. The originalAmerican progenitor of the Gentry family immigrated from England andbecame one of the earliest colonial settlers in Virginia, where his status in thecommunity is indicated by the fact that he had the distinction of being thefirst provincial governor of the colony. The lineage is traced back to remoteGerman origin and the orthography of the patronymic seven or eight centuriesago was Gantry, derived from the old German word signifying '' wolf ruler.''Eventually, in Great Britain, the name was softened and modified to itspresent form. The father of Mr. Gentry was a valiant soldier of the Confederacy in the Civil war, after the close of which he continued his residence inOrange County, Virginia, until his death. The Gentry family has had manydistinguished representatives, one of the number having served as Governorof Tennessee; Meridith P. Gentry having for many years represented thatstate in Congress, prior to the Civil war, during which conflict he was a member of the Congress of the Confederate States; and of the present generationa prominent member is Col. Richard D. Gentry, of Kansas City, who has beena prominent and influential figure in the civic and industrial progress of theState of Missouri, where he is now a retired capitalist. "With but minorparaphrase are taken the following interesting quotations from an interestingarticle which appeared in The Atlantian, a monthly publication:"Atlanta has no more valuable citizen than W. T. Gentry, president ofthe Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Company. A Virginian by birth,starting life as a telegraph operator, some thirty-four years ago while workingas a telegraph operator in the old town of Alexandria, Virginia, he came intouch with the telephone l&siness, as manager of a small exchange. This wasin the infancy of the telephone business, which was at the time hardly morethan a promising experiment. But the young telegraph operator, possessedof a versatile mind, of large foresight and immense industry, took hold of itwith enthusiasm, and in a very short time won his spurs. He was sent toAtlanta thirty-two years or more ago, to take charge of a little exchangewhich represented a small investment, a few thousand dollars. He has"worked up through every grade of the service, until to-day he is president ofa sixty-five million dollar public-service corporation which employs more than6,000 persons and which connects with a network of wires every village andhamlet of seven great states. No better evidence of Mr. Gentry's wisdom andhis qualification for the great place which he fills so well can be found thanhis attitude toward the State Railroad Commission. Always frank, open,kindly and generous, he has never leaned toward the secretive in the conductof his business and has kept for his company by his policies a large measureof public friendship. "When the State Railroad Commission of Georgiaassumed authority over all public-service corporations, Mr. Gentry did notdo as many other corporation officials do, try to hide everything he could;but he went before the commission with a statement that was a marvel of its