History of the Columbian Mutual Life Assurance Society
Lloyd T. Binford (1869-1956) was born in Duck Hill, Mississippi, and worked as a railroad clerk before joining the staff of the Woodmen of the World.[5] Soon thereafter he joined the corporate staff of the Columbian Woodmen, and quickly became one of its leading executives. After his election as Eminent Consul in 1916, Binford stabilized the organization’s finances by readjusting rates and visiting every lodge under the Columbian Woodmen.[6] By 1920 plans were being made for “the construction of a magnificent office building in Atlanta to be occupied as the home of the Columbian Woodmen”; the push for a new building eventually resulted in the headquarters being moved to Memphis.[7] At the 1922 meeting of the National Council, the council adapted several changes to the society’s structure proposed by Binford. Its name was changed from the “Columbian Woodmen” to the “Columbian Mutual Life Assurance Society” because “so many other societies were known as ‘Woodmen’ and caused confusion in the field.” [8] The titles of the organization’s officers were simplified so that non-members could better understand their meaning. Finally, the home offices or headquarters of the society would be moved closer to a majority of its members; at the end of the 1921 fiscal year, the Columbian fraternity had 901 subordinate lodges, of which 369 were in Mississippi, 135 were in Alabama, and 111 were in Louisiana.[9] After hearing bids from several Southern cities at the convention, the society chose Memphis, Tennessee, as the location of their new office.
Binford wanted the evolution of the Columbian Woodmen into the Columbian Mutual Society to transform it from a small regional fraternal organization into a major economic force on the Southern landscape. The construction of the Columbian Mutual Tower paralleled a common phenomenon in early New York skyscraper construction described by Gail Fenske: “After initially staking out a foothold or an operating base…the businesses relocated a number of times, usually in response to the need to house a larger staff. Then, once they had garnered the financial clout to undertake their own building projects, they planned head offices. The time at which a decision was made to construct a landmark headquarters varied in each company’s history, but generally construction was proposed in sequence with major organizational changes.”[10] Following this pattern, the Columbian Woodmen’s first headquarters was a small lodge at 122 Peachtree Street in Atlanta (now demolished), which they occupied until 1910.[11] They moved to the newly completed Rhodes Building (now demolished), a speculative office building in downtown Atlanta.[12] Since this move roughly coincided with the election of a new Eminent Consul, J.B. Frost, it was likely an attempt to expand the company’s corporate presence. Likewise, by 1920 the company’s headquarters had moved to another speculative office space, the 1913 Hurt Building (J.E.R. Carpenter) in Atlanta, and the location change probably occurred soon after Binford became its chief executive.[13] The Woolworth Company’s southern district headquarters also moved in to the Hurt Building in 1916, and this proximity may have spurred Columbian Mutual to emulate the larger company’s building style.[14] Like its New York counterparts, Columbian Mutual undertook the construction of a landmark headquarters building after amassing the necessary finances and began construction plans in conjunction with a corporate reorganization that, it was hoped, would “soon place it in the vanguard as a giant in the field of American insurance protection.”[15] The Columbian Mutual Tower, then, manifested the organization’s aspirations as an arresting component of the regional landscape.
[1] “Columbian Woodmen,” advertisement, The Atlanta Constitution, October 23, 1912; “The Columbian Woodmen” advertisement, The Insurance Year Book: Life, Casualty and Miscellaneous 37 (New York: Spectator Company, 1909), xxxi.
[2] “Columbian Woodmen,” advertisement, The Atlanta Constitution October 23, 1912.
[3] “Hoke Smith and J.B. Frost Deposed From Control of the Columbian Woodmen by Georgia Court.” The Nashville American, March 29, 1910.
[4] “Progress of the Columbian Woodmen Under Able Management,” The Fraternal Monitor 30, no. 7 (February 1920), 16.
[5] “Lloyd T. Binford Dies at 89,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis), August 28, 1956. Binford was better known as the domineering chair of the Memphis Censor Board; he held the post from 1927 to 1955 and ran the board from his office on the top floor of the Columbian Mutual Tower.
[6] “Progress of the Columbian Woodmen,” The Fraternal Monitor, 16.
[7] “Columbian Woodmen Plan Big Home Here,” The Atlanta Constitution, February 5, 1920.
[8] “Columbian Mutual Life Assurance Society, Formerly the Columbian Woodmen, Removes its Home Office to Memphis, Tenn.” The Fraternal Monitor 32, no. 7 (February 1922), 11.
[9] “The Columbian Mutual Life Assurance Society,” in Annual Report of the Insurance Commissioner of the State of Rhode Island Part III: Fraternal Assessment Insurance (Providence: The Oxford Press, 1922), 78.
[10] Gail Fenske and Deryck Holdsworth, “Corporate Identity and the New York Office Building: 1895-1915,” in The Landscape of Modernity: Essays on New York City, 1900-1940, edited by David Ward and Olivier Zunz (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1992), 131.
[11] “Household Is Organized,” The Atlanta Constitution. January 21, 1904.
[12] “Big Convention Held By Woodmen,” The Atlanta Constitution, March 16, 1911; “Rhodes Memorial Hall Landmark Designation,” City of Atlanta (October 23, 1989), 2.
[13] Annual Report of the Insurance Commissioner, 72.
[14] “Woolworth Acquires Offices in Atlanta,” The Atlanta Constitution, February 23, 1916.
