Alachua County FlArchives Biographies.....Fowler, James R. May 12, 1871 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/fl/flfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Nancy Rayburn http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00025.html#0006128 January 28, 2015, 10:30 pm Source: Vol. II pg. 21-22 The Lewis Publishing Co. 1923 Author: History of Florida, Past and Present FOWLER, JAMES RUSSELL. One of the representative citizens and prominent business men of Florida is found in JAMES RUSSELL FOWLER, of Gainesville, for many years a power in the lumber industry and later concerned with railroad construction, banking and important automobile interests. An able and alert business man himself, with an inheritance of business acumen, Mr. Fowler has been very successful in the prosecution of large undertakings that have not only been profitable to himself and his associates, but have been of vast benefit to many communities. JAMES RUSSELL FOWLER was born on a farm near Whitesville, Columbus County, North Carolina, May 12, 1871. His parents were GILES and ANNA DEBORA (HICHMAN) FOWLER, both natives of Columbus County, North Carolina, and both now deceased, his mother passing away on June 21, 1891, at the age of forty-seven years, and his father, in 1909, at Greenville, Florida. GILES FOWLER was born in Columbus County. North Carolina, in 1835, a son of GILBERT FOWLER, of an old family of that section, a large planter and a veteran of the Indian War of 1856 and of the war between the states in 1861-5. Among the many notable men of his time the late GILES FOWLER, through a vigorous personality and unerring foresight, achieved more in the business world than many of his contemporaries who, like himself, had suffered in estate from the accidents of war. After returning to private life, following four years in the Confederate army in the war between the states, as a member of the Tenth South Carolina Infantry, he turned his attention to the lumber business, and continued in the same in North Carolina until 1885, when he came to Florida. For four years he engaged in the manufacture of pine lumber on Orange Lake in Alachua County, during this time also conducting a commissary store at that point, then transferred his lumber interests to Citra, in Marion County, Florida. From there in 1890 he went to Ashburn, Georgia, where for one year he operated on contract the sawmills of the J. S. BETTS Company manufacturing shingles, laths and staves. He then went back to Citra, but subsequently returned to Ashburn, where he continued in the lumber business until 1894, when he removed to Newberry, Florida. This was little more than a railroad depot at that time, but within a year Mr. Fowler was operating the largest lumber mill in that section. In the meanwhile he was acquiring timber interests. From Newberry his next move was to Lochloosa, where he continued in the lumber business from 1897 until 1900. He moved then to another point and named the settlement Lennon, where he conducted a large commissary store and owned 29,000 acres of valuable pine timber until 1905. Removing then to Jacksonville he retired from active life, and his death occurred in 1909. For four years after locating at Jacksonville he handled real-estate to some extent, largely his own property, and erected a number of substantial buildings in that city. He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The closing year of his life was restfully spent on his small farm near Greenville, Florida. JAMES RUSSELL FOWLER had no exceptional educational privileges in boyhood, but he had the companionship and example of an honorable, thoroughgoing, practical business man in a school of experience. He was admitted to a partnership in the firm of Fowler & Son at Newberry in 1894. In 1905 Mr. Fowler came to Gainesville, and in 1906 he organized the Greenville Yellow Pine Company, becoming vice president and general manager, after which, he spent much time traveling over the state to inspect the best mills in operation in order to find the best mill equipment to put in the Greenville mills in the way of machinery. He built the great mill at Fowler, near Greenville, at a cost of $285,000, and also built twenty-seven miles of the Greenville Southern Railroad. In 1911 Mr. Fowler disposed of his various business interests, with a view of taking a rest, but nevertheless for another year before giving himself this benefit he served as general manager for the Upchurch Lumber Company of Jacksonville. In 1913 he returned to Gainesville. He operated a medium sized sawmill at Newberry for one year, and then embarked in the automobile business at Gainesville under the name of the Fowler Auto Company, in 1915 becoming agents for the Buick cars and establishing the Star Garage, the largest establishment of its kind and the best equipped in Central Florida. In May, 1922, he changed from the Buick to the Studebaker agency as a distributor in a territory consisting of St. Johns, Putnam, Dixie, Taylor, Levy, Marion, Lafayette, Citrus, Sumpter, Union and Bradford counties, and other points. He is a director in the First National Bank of Gainesville. In 1912, in partnership with his father-in-law, he erected the Pickett & Fowler store and office building, a two-story structure 100 by 100 feet in dimensions, and in 1921 he built the Just Right filling station, but has sold this interest. At Newberry, Florida, December 5, 1898, Mr. Fowler married Miss MARY ADALINE PICKETT, and they have six children: BERTHA ELIZABETH, a graduate in music from the Southern Florida College for Women, who is the wife of TULLY H. CARLTON, an attorney at Plant City, Florida; MARY LEE, who was a student in the Wesleyan Female College, Macon, Georgia, is the wife of CHARLES WEIR, of Ashville, North Carolina; GILES PICKETT, who is a student in Castle Heights Military Academy, Lebanon, Tennessee; WILLIAM EMORY, a student in the Gainesville High School ; and MARJORIE and J. R., Jr. Both Mr. and Mrs. Fowler are active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and he belongs to the Business Men's Bible Class and has been a steward for thirty-five years in that church. Mrs. Fowler takes much interest in the School Investment Improvement Association and the Twentieth Century Club, and is a member of the Eastern Star. Mr. Fowler is very active in the Chamber of Commerce and, in fact, it is difficult to name any phase of civic enterprise or usefulness in which his interest has not been demonstrated. In association with Mayor W. R. THOMAS he fathered the movement which, through the Chamber of Commerce, made a success of beautifying the city during his five years on the city council. He has long been a patron of athletics, is president of a baseball club and in 1905 was manager of the famous Oak Hill Baseball Club, the champion ball team of Gainesville. He is a director of the Gainesville Golf and Country Club and of the Rotary Club, and is chairman of the Rotary Club Good Roads Committee, and fills the same office in the Chamber of Commerce. He is very much in earnest in regard to this subject, and at his own expense has held good roads meetings all over North Florida and South Georgia. He is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner, and is a past chancellor commander of Bronson Lodge, Knights of Pythias. For his untiring efforts in all local drives during the World war he was awarded a gold medal. Photo: http://www.usgwarchives.net/fl/alachua/photos/bios/fowler87bs.jpg File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/fl/alachua/bios/fowler87bs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/flfiles/ File size: 7.8 Kb