Bio: John Gordon Addington; Bowling Green, KY., then Caddo Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller
Date: 1999-2000


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John Gordon Addington.  Among the younger business men of Shreveport whose initiative enterprise and energy have been dominant 
factors in winning for the city a prominent place among the commercial and industrial centers of the South, John Addington has 
deserved recognition.  When Mr. Addington came to Shreveport in 1903, he was then & Young man of twenty-three, with two years 
of experience as a soldier in the Philippines, and his resources and capital consisted principally of his, energy and enterprising disposition.  
He has made good as a business man, and is one of the spirited citizens who have carried forward the larger program of Shreveport's commercial 
destiny. He was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in 1880, ninth son of James Sulls and Mary (Chastein) Addington.  His parents were 
natives of Georgia, is father
served as a Confederate soldier with Tenth Georgia Cavalry during the war between the states.  His maternal
grandfather, Colonel Chastein, commanded a Georgia regiment during the same war.  Bowling Green, Kentucky, where John G. Addington 
was born, was only the temporary residence of his parents, for shortly following his birth the family returned to Georgia, where the
son grew up and received his early education.  In 1899, at the age of nineteen, he went out to Texas, and at Waco volunteered for service
in the Philippine Islands.  He went across the Pacific with Colonel Hare's regiment and General Funston's brigade, and participated in many 
phases of the Philippine insurrection.  He remained on the island about two years, returning to the United States in 1901.  Having received his
honorable discharge from the service, he returned to Atlanta, Georgia, and became associated with his father in a brokerage business in 
that city.  His mother had died when he was ten years of age. On coming to Shreveport Mr. Addington found employment with the local
telephone company, and was later employed for eight years by the city as an officer. It was in 1913 that he embarked in business for 
himself by establishing a retail grocery business on Missouri Avenue.  Later he engaged in the retail drug business, and was the first to
establish a chain of retail drug stores in Shreveport, building and establishing Triangle Nos. 1. 2, 3 and 4, these stores being located on
Busby, Missouri, Western and Claiborne avenues, respectively.  He has also figured prominently in many of Shreveport's largest real estate
transactions.  He is a man of keen civic pride and interest, always active in helping to make Shreveport, his adopted home, a bigger and 
better place in which to live.  He is of Christian faith, a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, and a Noble of the Mystic Shrine.
He is also a
member of the Civitan Club, and the Shreveport Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Addington married Miss Edith Crofford, 
of Beckville, Panola County, Texas, April 3, 1904, and to this union has been born a daughter, Margie Mae, born July 3, 1906.
A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 261, by Henry E. Chambers.  Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.