DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the marker tells it, and I'm just passing it along. Now, some men leave a mark on a city. Thomas L.
Bradford left a children's hospital, a mayor's office, and a home that's still standing to tell the tale. Bradford was born in Louisiana in 1869, and sometime in the 1890s he made his way to Dallas — which, if you know anything about Dallas in those years, was a city with its eyes wide open and its sleeves already rolled up. He arrived as an entrepreneur and got to work.
Eventually he landed in the finance department of Southwestern Life Insurance Company, and whatever he did in that department, the company's growth was — the marker calls it impressive, and I'm inclined to take it at its word. By 1930, Bradford was chairman of the board. But he wasn't just a man of ledgers and boardrooms.
In 1929 — one of the more turbulent years this country ever produced — Bradford donated funds for a newborn baby center. You think about that. While the financial world was coming apart at the seams, this man was putting money toward the smallest, most vulnerable lives he could find.
That center later merged with three other hospitals in 1948, and out of that merger came Children's Medical Center of Dallas. Part of it became Bradford Memorial Hospital. His name, attached to a place where children get to keep living.
Not a bad legacy. And he wasn't done. In 1931, the Dallas City Council appointed him Mayor of Dallas.
He'd built a home in this city by 1907. He'd grown one of its major insurance companies. He'd helped build a hospital for its children.
And now he was its mayor. The marker notes, with quiet understatement, that Bradford died the next year — ending, as it says, a life of public service and commercial success in Dallas. He was a mayor, a capitalist, and a philanthropist.
The marker gives him all three titles, and standing here, it's hard to argue with any one of them.
What the marker says
Thomas L. Bradford, who built this home by 1907, was a mayor, capitalist and philanthropist. Born in Louisiana in 1869, he moved to Dallas in the 1890s and became an entrepreneur before working in Southwestern Life Insurance Company's finance department, guiding the company's impressive growth and becoming chairman of the board in 1930. In 1929, Bradford donated funds for a newborn baby center, which merged with three other hospitals in 1948 to form Children's Medical Center of Dallas, part of which became Bradford Memorial Hospital. In 1931, the Dallas City Council appointed him Mayor. Bradford died the next year, ending a life of public service and commercial success in Dallas. (2006)