DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Monroe Dunaway Anderson — M. D. to the world — was a Tennessee native who didn't set out to change medicine.
He set out to move cotton. In 1904, he joined his brother Frank and two partners, William L. and Ben Clayton, in an Oklahoma cotton merchandising business. Anderson, Clayton and Company, they called it.
And M. D. Anderson?
He was the man watching the money — chief financial officer, quiet and careful. Three years later, in 1907, he moved to Houston and opened a branch office right there in the city's original Cotton Exchange building, corner of Travis and Franklin streets. Houston was just the branch.
For a while. By 1916, Anderson, Clayton and Company had moved its main offices to Houston entirely, and by 1923 they were right here — this very Houston Cotton Exchange building. They prospered.
That's the marker's word, and it's doing a lot of work. They didn't just get by. They became the leading merchants in the global cotton market.
The whole globe. And through all of it, M. D.
Anderson never married. Lived frugally, the marker says, in downtown hotels. A man swimming in the world's cotton trade, sleeping in a hotel room.
In 1936, he took the fortune he had made and established a charitable foundation. He was sixty-three years old. He had no heirs waiting on that money.
He just built the vessel and started filling it. Then in 1939, Monroe Dunaway Anderson died. And upon his death, twenty million dollars of his estate was willed to the M.
D. Anderson Foundation. Twenty million dollars.
Now here's where the story takes its turn. In 1941, the Texas Legislature authorized the creation of a cancer research hospital. When the trustees of the M.
D. Anderson Foundation learned that, they made their move — they successfully bid for the institution and helped finance it. A cotton man's fortune, carefully gathered over a quiet lifetime in Houston hotels, became the engine behind what would grow into the M.
D. Anderson Cancer Center and the Texas Medical Center. Both of them, world renowned institutions today.
M. D. Anderson never saw any of that.
But he built the foundation — in every sense of the word.
What the marker says
Tennessee native Monroe Dunaway (M. d.) Anderson (1873-1939) joined his brother Frank and William L. and Ben Clayton in an Oklahoma cotton merchandising business in 1904. Anderson served as chief financial officer for the business, known as Anderson, Clayton & Company. In 1907 he moved to Houston and opened a branch office for the company in Houston's original Cotton Exchange building at the corner of Travis and Franklin streets. Anderson, Clayton & Company moved its main offices to Houston in 1916 and in 1923 moved here to the Houston Cotton Exchange building. They prospered and became the leading merchants in the global cotton market. Anderson never married and lived frugally in downtown hotels. In 1936 he established a charitable foundation with the fortune he made in the cotton business. Upon his death in 1939, $20 million of his estate was willed to the M. D. Anderson Foundation. The Texas Legislature authorized the creation of a cancer research hospital in 1941. Upon learning this, trustees of the M. D. Anderson Foundation successfully bid for the institution and helped finance it. The M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and the Texas Medical Center which the M. D. Anderson Foundation created have become world renowned institutions.