Bio: Duncan Allen Brown; TX., then Caddo Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller
Date: 1999-2000





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Duncan Allen Brown, president of the Brown-Mason Oil Company, distributors of
oil and petroleum products, with offices in the Commercial Bank Building at
Shreveport, is a veteran of the oil business, though a comparatively young man
in years.  It was his portion to have been thrown on the necessity of
self-support when a boy, and his first employment was with an oil company and
he has practically never been out of the business since then.

Mr. Brown was born on a ranch in Texas in 1890.  His father owned and lived on
the ranch a few years, and the parents returned to their former home in New
Orleans, Louisiana, which was also the home of the grandparents.  Duncan A.
Brown was six months of age when the family went back to Louisiana.  A few
years later his father died in New Orleans, and Mr. Brown thereafter had to
think of not only doing for himself, but assisting his mother and younger
sisters.  Accordingly he went to work in the New Orleans offices of the Gulf
Refining Company.  He was general office boy and messenger and received
promotions from time to time.  The Gulf Refining Company later sent him to
Shreveport as clerk of the distributing station.  Some time later he was
promoted to agent, being the youngest agent the Gulf Refining Company has ever
had in his territory.

In 1911 Mr. Brown opened the first curb filling station in Shreveport, a very
small and crude affair, but marking the beginning of a business of great
possibilities.  At that time Shreveport had comparatively few automobiles, and
gas was delivered at various homes in five and ten-gallon lots by wagon
delivery.  It was in the early history of modern methods of oil salesmanship
that Mr. Brown made for himself a record as a super salesman.  The Gulf
Refining Company of Louisiana, covering territory in five states on Supreme
auto oil, had a get-together contest in 1913, and Mr. Brown sold more oil in
Shreveport than any other representative of the company in the previous year.

Leaving the Gulf Company in 1914, Mr. Brown early in the following year went
with the Louisiana Oil Company as sales manager, and acted as such until he
and Mr. Davis withdrew from that company in 1917 to establish the Davis-Brown
Oil Company.  This business in 1919 was purchased by the Caddo Central Oil
Company, Mr. Brown continuing with that organization as sales manager in the
wholesale department, where he made a splendid record.  Then, in 1921, he
formed the Brown-Mason Oil Company, petroleum products distributors, and is
president and general manager of this business today.

During the World war period he conducted many Red Cross drives, serving as
chairman of the finance committee.  His public spirit has led him to take an
active part in all civic movements.  He was captain on Y. M. C. A. drives,
drives for Centenary College, and has shown a willingness to co-operate with
organizations in promoting any worthy object.  He is a Knight Templar and
Shriner, is a democrat in politics, is a prominent Rotarian, having at one
time acted as secretary of the Shreveport Rotary Club, and is a member of the
Shreveport Country Club and City Club.  He comes of a Methodist family.

Mr. Brown married Miss Sadie V. Hardy, daughter of Mr. C. W. Hardy, and member
of one of Shreveport's oldest and most respected families.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 208, by Henry E. Chambers.  Published by
The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.