Jesse H. Jones

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Jesse Holman Jones (April 5, 1874 – June 1, 1956) was a Democratic politician and entrepreneur from Houston, Texas.

He served as United States Secretary of Commerce from 1940 to 1945. Jones operated a Tennessee tobacco plant at the age of fourteen, and at nineteen, he was put in charge of his uncle's lumberyards.

Jones stayed in Houston to care for his uncle's estate and established a lumberyard business, which grew rapidly. M. T. Jones, Jones' uncle, died in Houston five years ago.

Jesse founded the South Texas Lumber Company during this time.

He also started to grow into real estate, commercial building, and banking.

His commercial building projects in Houston included mid-rise and skyscraper office buildings, hotels, and apartments, as well as movie theaters.

He designed the Foster Building, the home of the Houston Chronicle, in exchange for a fifty percent stake in the newspaper, which he bought in 1926. Jones' involvement in civic life and politics began with the Port of Houston and the Houston Ship Channel.

He led a group of local bankers in purchasing public finance bonds and was later named Chair of the Houston Harbor Board.

He led a local fundraising effort on behalf of the American Red Cross in favor of servicemen in World War I. President Wilson nominated Jones to head a division of the American Red Cross, a service he did not carry out between 1917 and 1919.

He initiated and organized Houston's bid for the 1928 Democratic National Convention in 1928. He served on the board of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), a federal department that was established in the Herbert Hoover administration and was instrumental in combating the Great Depression and industrial expansion during World War II. In 1933, President Roosevelt appointed Jones to the RFC Chairmanship.

Jones was in charge of spending US$50 billion, mainly in financing railways and building munitions plants.

He served as the United States Secretary of Commerce from 1940 to 1945, a position he held concurrently with RFC chairman Paul Glebn's.

Jesse and Mary Jones, after leaving Washington, concentrated on philanthropy, which was carried out through the Houston Endowment, a non-profit entity that was established in 1937.

Family history and early life

Jesse H. Jones descended on Welsh ancestors who made Virginia their first landing place in North America in the 1650s, sometime in the 1650s. They migrated to the Chowan River in North Carolina, where they have been stationed for at least a century. Eli Jones and one of his brothers went west in 1774, eventually settling in Robertson County, Tennessee. William, one of Eli's sons, branded himself a farmer and married Laura Anna Holman, a neighboring farmer's daughter. The farm was adequate to satisfy all of the family's needs and grow tobacco for sale, partly from their own efforts and partially from the work of slave slaves.

Jesse Holman Jones was born in 1874, the fourth of five children. Jesse's mother died on April 22, 1880, only after he had turned six. Nancy Jones Hurt, his aunt, and her two children joined the family. She was a "guide, doctor, and clothing designer of all the Jones children" and was a "known cook." Sudley Place was his childhood home.

The Jones family, including Aunt Nancy and seven children, moved to Dallas, Texas, in part in order for William to join his brother Martin Tilton "M.T." Jones is a successful lumber company. M.T. ten years ago. After a stop in Illinois, his family had retrained in Terrell, Texas. Aunt Nancy stayed in Dallas and enrolled the children in local public schools, while William transferred to Terrell to oversee the M.T. In northeast Texas, Jones Lumber Company and other lumberyards are among the company's other lumberyards. M.T. was able to fly through this procedure. In southeast Texas, he's planning to relocate closer to his timberlands and other areas. However, William married for two years and returned with his extended family to Robertson County, where he purchased a new farm to work. So Jesse was back in Tennessee at the age of twelve. William Jones' new estate was 600 acres, and the patriarch designed a large brick house with ten rooms to accommodate his large family. This house was "the best outside of Nashville," according to one biographer. Jesse recalled that the family farm was bountiful, providing enough meat and produce to leave a surplus throughout the seasons. Jones recalled that they even shared meals with less fortunate neighbors who were struggling during the winter months.

As a youth, Jesse had been a diligent worker, caring for the farm animals, and doing various household chores. He hacked out weeds, picked cotton, and herded cattle during the summers when his family was living in Dallas, Texas. He did not demonstrate the same dedication for school, and later Jesse recalled numerous scoldings and reprimands from his teachers. Each of his two sons was charged with a tobacco plot. He allotted three acres to each son and provided them with provisions. After paying their store bills, neither of them will be able to keep any money. When he left school after the eighth grade, he turned this interest to a career in the tobacco industry. William Jones did not only grow tobacco, but also sold the crop, and he also started Jones, Holman and Armstrong, which processed tobacco. William put Jesse in charge of one of the tobacco plants. He was in charge of obtaining (or even refusing) classification, warehousing, and shipping cigarettes. In addition, his name was on the company bank account, and he signed checks for the company's operations.

Jesse and his family returned to Dallas at the age of seventeen. Jesse began working in Hillsboro, Texas, at one of his uncle's lumberyards, after many attempts to find a suitable job in Dallas and the immediate areas. He did manual labour, but he also worked on the office side of the company, including bookkeeping and debt collection. Despite his varied responsibilities, he made the same salary for a salesman: $40 per month. He requested a fifty percent raise, despite the fact that he worked day and night. He refused. Jesse died only a few months before his father, William Jones, was killed. The will instruct that trustees run the tobacco company, while Jesse will take over at age twenty-one. He also owned over $2,000 in stock.

Personal life

Jones spent time at the Rice Hotel in Houston, but he also remained at "the Boarding House," the aunt of his aunt, Louisa Jones' home. Her house was located on the corner of Anita and Main Street, south of downtown Houston. Jones spent many years as the estate of his uncle, M. T. Jones, and continued to act as a business manager for his aunt and his cousins. Much of his social life revolved around them. Mary Gibbs Jones, his future wife, was first married to Will Jones, his cousin.

On December 15, 1920, Jones married Mary Gibbs. They stayed at the Rice Hotel until 1926, when they moved into their Penthouse at the new Lamar Hotel. Alfred C. Finn supervised and oversaw the building's construction, but Jones hired John Staub to style the interior for their apartment. Audrey Jones, one of Mary's grandchildren, lived with them as a child. At the Lamar, several members of his extended family lived in the apartments. Jones referred to this company network as his "business family" because his friendships with several of his business associates were also based on close friendships.

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