Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

GEORGIA AND GEOKGIANS 30.39leaving college he returned to La Grange, and engaged in cotton planting.He was then twenty-one years of age, but already displayecl the prescience,the keen judgement and the resolution which were such notable characteristics.of his entire career. He was one of the few who recognized the possibilitiesin cottonseed, which up to that time had been practically a waste by-productof the cotton industry, though some experiments had already demonstratedthe value of the oil, and the manufacture of oil was already being carriedon in a small way. , It was in this department of the industry that Mr.Thornton embarked his enthusiasm and energy, which led him eventually. to rank as a foremost leader in an industry which has added almost untoldwealth to the Southern states. For several years Mr. Thornton studied,,observed, experimented, and mastered all the details of the cottonseed business so far as then understood. In 1882 he came to Atlanta and built the firstAtlanta oil mill. While his work from that time forward cannot be followedin particulars, it can be asserted without fear of contradiction that he did asmuch toward building up the immense cottonseed oil industry as any otheroneman, and possibly more.Mr. Thornton extended his interests from Atlanta, as president of the oil'mills at Elberton and Milledgeville, and for many years served as presidentof the Georgia State Crushers' Association. He also became president of theInterstate Crushers' Association, an organization which directs the entireindustry and covers the large soap and packing interests of the United States,.and which, with its 750 members at the time of his death, represented acapital of $100,000,000. How important the cottonseed industry is in theeconomic assets of the South is understood better from a statement of statisticians that the products of the cottonseed in their finished commercial staterepresent a value equal to about 20 per cent of the total value of the lintcotton crop. That means an addition of approximately $100,000,000 a yearto the cotton belt.With the prominence which he acquired as an organizer and builder inthe cottonseed trade, Mr. Thornton was naturally associated with many otherbusiness affairs, and his name would readily find a place among a small groupof financiers and executives who to a large degree controlled many of themostimportant business resources of the Southeastern states. Mr. Thorntonserved as a director of the Seaboard Air Line Railway, the Atlanta and WestPoint Railway, in the Atlanta Home Insurance Company, the Georgia Railway and Electric Company, the Southern States Mutual Insurance Company,,and the Atlanta National Bank. He was for a period of twenty-five years a.director and vice president in the Atlanta National Bank, the oldest andlargest bank in Atlanta, and it was only an expression of the verdict of his.associates in that institution that the bank never had a more highly valuedmember upon its directory nor one who gave it better service. As.Mr. Thornton began his business career as a planter, so he was never entirelydivorced from that basic industry. He found his greatest recreation in planting, and clearly saw the need for an improvement in Southern methods, ofdealing with stock and for an increase in the live stock industry. In his lateryears he made a study of the Bermuda grass just as he had previously ofcotton seed and lent the full force of his influence to the introduction andcultivation of that grass as a means of enriching the Southern farms andplanters.In 1881 Mr. Thornton married Miss Leila Austell, a daughter ofGen. Alfred Austell, whose high position in Atlanta commercial affairs andiwhose life and services are recorded on other pages. Mr. Thornton was survived by Mrs. Thornton and three children, two sons and a daughter: Alfred'A., Albert E., Jr., and Jane Thornton. The oldest, Alfred Austell Thornton,.died July 23, 1913, in this thirty-first year. Albert E. Thornton, the only/living son, is a lawyer by profession and a member of the Atlanta bar.