The historic Lamar Life Building across the street from the Mississippi Governor's Mansion is a 10-story skyscraper that was once the tallest building in Mississippi. See: (
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More on the history of this lovely building, designed by the Fort Worth TX architectural firm of Sanguinet and Staats (which is responsible from many great buildings in that city, Mama Blaster's hometown) is found in the archives of the MS Department of History:
"Z 1851.000 S
LAMAR LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY RECORDS
1906-1988
Biography/History:
The Lamar Mutual Life Insurance Company, named in honor of Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, was chartered in February 1906 with capital stock of $50,000. A. C. Jones was elected as the first president of Lamar Mutual Life. The company began operations on April 6, 1906, in a suite of three rented offices in the Medical Building on Capitol Street in Jackson, Mississippi, next to the Century Theatre where the company's first organizational meeting was held.
The original office staff of Lamar Mutual Life consisted of a secretary, stenographer, and cashier, and the field force consisted of three agents. The cashier was Christian W. Welty, future president of the company and father of Mississippi author Eudora Welty. The company's first life-insurance policy was sold to Mississippi governor James K. Vardaman in 1906. A double-indemnity life-insurance policy was also sold to future Louisiana governor Huey P. Long in 1913.
During 1906 the Lamar Mutual Life Insurance Company purchased a two-story building on Capitol Street in Jackson, Mississippi, to serve as its home office. This building was located next to the Pythian Castle of the Knights of Pythias, and it would remain the company's home office until 1925.
In 1908 William Q. Cole became the company's second president. Before assuming the presidency, Cole insisted on major changes in the company's charter that included removing the word "Mutual" from its corporate name and requiring that thereafter the company would sell only non-participating life insurance. Under Cole's leadership Lamar Life grew steadily, and during the next few years the company was licensed to sell insurance in Tennessee in 1912 and Alabama in 1918. Lamar Life even managed to sustain modest growth during World War I.
Lamar Life's assets were listed at $1,366,266 at the time H. S. Weston became president of the company in 1920. Under his leadership Lamar Life continued to prosper during the 1920s, spreading to Louisiana and Arkansas in 1922 and Texas in 1924. H. S. Weston served as president until 1931.
Concurrent with Lamar Life's territorial expansion was the decision to build a new home office building. The new building was designed by the architectural firm Sanguinet, Staats, and Hedrick of Fort Worth, Texas, in association with architect N. W. Overstreet of Jackson, Mississippi. Construction began in 1923 and was completed by the end of 1924. The building was dedicated on February 17, 1925. Christian W. Welty, vice-president and general manager in 1925, announced that the new building was constructed without selling any corporate assets or incurring any corporate debt.
Following the 1927 Mississippi River flood that caused extensive damage in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, Lamar Life helped to ease some of the financial burdens of its policy holders by extending the due dates for policy premiums and policy loans. Likewise, following the 1929 stock market crash and the resulting economic depression, Lamar Life once again helped to ease some of the financial burdens of its policy holders by allowing them to borrow against the cash value of their policies. Although the 1929 stock market crash brought Lamar Life's business to a near-standstill, the company continued to operate in-the-black throughout the depression.
Lamar Life established Mississippi's first network radio station, WJDX, in 1929. The original studio was located on the top floor of the Lamar Life Insurance Company Building. WJDX was an affiliate of the National Broadcasting System.
Christian W. Welty became Lamar Life's fourth president in 1931, but he had been in office only a few months before his untimely death from leukemia. Welty made many important contributions to the company such as successfully directing the field force, editing the company newsletter, The Firing Line, and organizing the All-Star Club which honored outstanding Lamar Life agents.
Jesse Bounds succeeded Christian W. Welty as president in 1931, and he served until 1937. Peter K. Lutken became president in 1937, and he served until 1962.
During World War II Lamar Life grew slowly, as many of its employees were on military leave. However, prosperity and expansion characterized the company after the war, as former members of the armed forces began to invest heavily in life insurance.
In 1953 the Weston family and other shareholders sold their forty-percent interest in Lamar Life to Clint Murchison, a Texas industrialist . In 1955 Murchison's two sons, John and Clint, Jr. [founding owner of the Dallas Cowboys NFL franchise - BMB], were successful in purchasing the majority of the stock and formed the Life Companies, Inc., the parent company of the Lamar Life Insurance Company. The assets of Lamar Life were valued at $57,542,482 in 1955.
Lamar Life began the operation of the National Broadcasting Company-affiliated television station WLBT (Channel 3) in 1953. The studios for WJDX and WLBT were located in the company's radio and television center that was completed in Jackson that same year. In 1964 the United Church of Christ and a group of civil rights activists challenged WLBT's right to renew its broadcasting license with the Federal Communications Commission on the grounds that the station discriminated against blacks. The FCC investigated the charges but claimed that it could find no evidence to support them.
WLBT continued to be operated by Lamar Life until 1969, when Warren Burger, then a federal judge for the District of Columbia, reversed the Federal Communications Commission ruling and ordered WLBT's broadcasting license to be revoked by the FCC. WLBT was then operated by Communications Improvement, Inc., a non-profit organization designated by the FCC as interim broadcasting license holder in 1971. WLBT was operated by CII until it was sold to Civic Communications Corporation, a company that included black and white investors from Mississippi and Texas, in 1984.
William H. Mounger served as president of Lamar Life from 1962 to 1964. Harland L. Knight served as president of Lamar Life from 1964 to 1973. Jack P. Dean served as president of Lamar Life from 1973 to 1989.
By the 1980s Jackson businessmen Robert M. Hearin and Charles Else and New Jersey oil producer Leon Hess were successful in acquiring more than eighty percent of the stock of Lamar Life Corporation, the parent company of Lamar Life Insurance Company that was formed in 1972 shortly after the former parent company, the Life Companies, Inc., was liquidated.
In 1988 the Lamar Life Corporation sold the Lamar Life Insurance Company to Whitehall Insurance Holdings, Ltd., of Lexington, Kentucky, for 130 million dollars.
Scope and Content:
The business records of the Lamar Life Insurance Company begin during the year that it was chartered as the Lamar Mutual Life Insurance Company in 1906 and end during the year of its sale to Whitehall Insurance Holdings, Ltd., of Lexington, Kentucky, in 1988. The business records of Lamar Life contain a great deal of narrative and statistical information about the history of a company that has played a leading role in the economic development of Mississippi and the Southeast through its commitment to provide financial security for its customers by offering a variety of innovative life-insurance products and related financial services. The business records of Lamar Life also provide evidence of the important contributions that the company has made to the insurance industry in Mississippi and its stature in the insurance industry nationally. The business records of Lamar Life further document the company's early involvement in radio and television broadcasting in Mississippi.
The collection also contains photographs of interior and exterior views of the Lamar Mutual Life Insurance Company home office; the construction of the Lamar Life Insurance Company Building; the studio and tower of the radio station WJDX; locations throughout downtown Jackson, Mississippi; and Lamar Life conventions that were held throughout North America.
Of additional importance are the plans and elevations of the Lamar Life Insurance Company Building. This building is one of the most architecturally significant landmarks in downtown Jackson, Mississippi; and the plans and elevations, which are amazingly complete, will likewise be of considerable value to architectural historians interested in the study of early twentieth-century commercial architecture in the South."
The landmark Lamar Life Building is listed as a contributing building to the National Register Smith Park Architectural District.
From the Amendment to the Smith Park Architectural District Boundary (made to add the Electric building), we found a short narrative of the overall district: (
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"The Smith Park Architectural District in downtown Jackson was listed on the National Register in 1976 and contains a collection of architecturally significant buildings that were constructed between 1840 and 1940 around Smith Park, the only "public square" to be established in accordance with the city's original 1822 plan. A wide variety of architectural styles are represented in the district: Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Jacobethan Revival, Neo-Classical Revival, Art Deco, and Eclectic Mediterranean. The majority of the buildings are large, important, civic, commercial, and religious buildings."
The Smith Park Architectural District is an irregularly shaped area along N. West and N. Congress Streets, between Capitol St. and the Mississippi State Capitol Building at Jackson.