Edward Ball (businessman)

Edward Gresham Ball (March 21, 1888 – June 24, 1981) was a businessman who wielded powerful political influence in Florida for decades. Referred to as "a law unto himself", despite the fact that he never held public office and did not own much of the assets he controlled, he led a forest products company, a railroad and owned newspapers. He worked for and with his brother-in-law Alfred I. du Pont for nine years before running the Alfred I. duPont Testamentary Trust's businesses himself for another 46 years. He founded and led the St. Joe Paper Company to become a major player in several industries in Florida. He was a leader of the anti-communist Pork Chop Gang, a group of Democratic Party legislators from North Florida.

Early years

Edward Ball was born at Ball's Neck near Kilmarnock in Northumberland County, Virginia and educated in the one-room Shiloh Schoolhouse. After completing primary school, he convinced his father to let him quit school and get a job. After Jessie & Alfred moved to Florida in 1926, Edward joined them.

du Pont's death

When Alfred died in 1935, his estate was valued at over $56 million, which, after estate taxes of $30 million, left $26 million. Alfred's will named Jessie as the principal trustee, but in reality, she deferred business decisions to her brother, Edward, who took control of the assets of the testamentary trusts, which included large Florida landholdings and industrial interests, including the Florida East Coast Railway. Jessie preferred to handle the philanthropic activities of the trust while Edward concentrated on making money.

Power

Ball had no interest in running for office and little desire for material things; for most of his life, he didn't even own an automobile. Ball used various means to acquire enormous unofficial political power in Florida. He amassed a wide network of connections, and was the key figure in a group of 20 rural, conservative, north Florida politicians that controlled Florida from the 1930s to the 1960s called the Pork Chop Gang Their public spokesman was Florida Senate President Charley Eugene Johns from Starke. The coalition supported racial segregation (which was practiced at the St. Joe Paper Mill) and was known for toasting "Confusion to the Enemy!" with Jack Daniel's whiskey. Ball was a main (but not the only) financer of the defeat of Claude Pepper in his bid for reelection to the United States Senate in 1950. Pepper's liberalism and Ball's conservatism feuded through much of the 1940s and 1950s, prompting a book to be written in 2000: Claude Pepper and Ed Ball: Politics, Purpose, and Power.

According to a 1979 article in The New York Times, Edward Ball at various times was called a Robber Baron and a political power broker; a clever man with a dollar and a dangerous man to cross; a courtly Virginian with the ladies and a ruthless foe. He is known for "orneriness" but insists his reputation is undeserved; he claims he was just a trusted functionary who did his best for the institution he served. Critics say he hijacked the trust as a tool of his personal power, treating the assets like a miser hoarding every coin. He had the reputation of a "tart-tongued, hard-nosed conservative financier".

Habits

In an interview, Ball said, "I suppose some people might call me tight with a dollar."thumb|right|150px|Alfred du Pont, Ball's mentor

Banking

Alfred du Pont acquired a major interest in Florida National Bank (founded 1905) of Jacksonville shortly after arriving in Florida in the mid-1920s. Other banks were gradually added into what became the Florida National Group,

Ball built the Florida National Bank building at 214 North Hogan Street in Jacksonville in 1961. The structure was eleven stories tall and contained the corporate offices for the bank. Ed Ball also kept his principal office there for managing the du Pont Trust. After Ball's death, the structure was renamed the Ed Ball Building.

On March 7, 1989, First Union Corporation, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, announced that it would acquire Florida National Banks in a deal worth $849 million.

The company invigorated the local economy following the depression, employing thousands and paying good wages, but wreaked havoc on the environment. The mill released sulfurous exhaust and dioxin, a byproduct of the paper bleaching process that is a carcinogen. By the 1950s, the company was drawing of water a day from the Floridan aquifer, seriously depleting the water table. St. Joe Paper also clear-cut millions of acres of old growth forest, engaging in silviculture to replant the areas with slash pine. The practice decimated the native longleaf pine stands, reducing the species to "2 percent of its former range." Because of this, the United States Department of the Interior designated parts of the region a Critically Endangered Ecosystem. and landholdings reached . Most of the land was situated between Tallahassee and Pensacola, but there was substantial acreage in southern Georgia. The paper mill was most profitable in the 1960s, with products being directly marketed to company-owned box plants.

Lodge at Wakulla Springs

Wakulla Springs is one of the deepest and largest freshwater springs in the world. Ball purchased surrounding Wakulla Springs in 1937 and constructed the Lodge at Wakulla Springs as a guest house. He imported marble and tile and hired craftsmen and artisans who built everything needed for the lodge on-site. Blacksmiths, millwrights, masons, stone cutters, painters, and artists created an elegant retreat using iron and stone; the high ceilings were painted with murals. There are 27 unique guestrooms, each with a voluminous marble bathroom, walk-in closet, and antique or period furniture.

Ball's tenure saw the permanent end of FEC's passenger service. The FEC was forced to resume carrying passengers two years after the strike began, when the courts ruled the FEC corporate charter mandated that the railroad carry passengers as well as freight. In response, Ball instituted a bare-bones passenger service with only a box lunch for food and no baggage, which lasted until 1968.

thumb|150px|sister Jessie Ball du Pont

Jessie's death

After his sister died in 1970, Ball came under strong criticism for reinvesting the trust's income to build up their value instead of fully respecting the requirements of du Pont's will, which stipulated that after Jessie Ball du Pont's death, trust income was to be used to aid the Nemours Foundation in caring for crippled children and indigent elderly in Delaware. Ball ignored the criticism, but he couldn't ignore the wave of lawsuits that were brought by other trustees, the State of Delaware and others.

In a New York Times interview two years before his passing, he said that his life had been long and the critics be damned; he lived it the best way he could.

"When I go across the creek, it will be because I can't help myself or can't work any longer." When he died, the value of the du Pont trust had ballooned to $2 billion. His late sister's foundation, the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, had assets of $75 million. Ball's own estate was estimated to be worth $75–200 million.

Legacy

His name is prefixed to the Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park.
There is an Edward Ball Building in Jacksonville, Florida.
There is an Edward Ball room at Gulf Coast State College in Panama City, Florida.
There is an Edward Ball Nature Trail in Thompson Bayou, a natural area of the campus of the University of West Florida in Pensacola

References

External links

University of Florida Smathers Libraries: A Guide to the Edward Ball Papers
Funding Universe: Company Histories-St. Joe Paper Company
Funding Universe: Company Histories- Florida East Coast Industries, Inc.