Thomas Mellon Evans was a financier who was one of the early corporate raiders in American business as well as a philanthropist and a prominent Thoroughbred racehorse owner and breeder who won the 1981 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes.
Background
Born James Evans in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Thomas Mellon Evans and Martha Jarnagin, his mother had his name changed to honor his recently deceased father in 1913. Orphaned as a young boy, Thomas was sent to stay with his mother"s relatives in Tennessee before returning to Pittsburgh to live with his mother"s sister.
Education
She and her husband were affluent enough to provide Thomas with a quality education and he graduated from the Shady Side Academy private school in 1927 and Yale University in 1931.
Career
Evans"s great-grandmother Elinor was the sister of Thomas Mellon, the father of the wealthy financier, Andrew West. Mellon. Foreign a few years after finishing university, Thomas Evans held a clerical job at Gulf Oil, owned at the time by the Mellon family. Ambitious, he saved as much money as he could from his salary and together with a small inheritance, set out on his own.
In 1939, he was able to purchase the bankrupt H. K. Porter, Incorporated., a manufacturer of light-duty railroad locomotives that he would diversify into the steel, hardware, and construction material business before converting the company into a holding corporation that would, during Evans time, take over more than eighty United States. companies.
Among his major acquisitions was the 1959 takeover of Crane Company of Chicago, then a large valve and plumbing fixture manufacturer. In April 1959 Evans was appointed Chairman of the Board and Chief executive officer of the company.
The July 23, 2000, edition of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette said that Thomas Mellon Evans was "arguably one of the seminal figures of 20th-century business." Evans" story was told by Diana B. Henriques in her book The White Sharks of Wall Street: Thomas Mellon Evans and the Original Corporate Raiders published by Scribner in 2000 ( - Library of Congress Online Catalog). In 1956, Evans bought a 495-acre cattle farm in Gainesville, Virginia, and converted it to a Thoroughbred breeding operation under the name The farm was managed and directed by Don M. Robertson, General Manager of the farm and a Vice President of its incorporation.
Robertson, a Central Kentucky native whose family heritage consisted of a long line of excellent Thoroughbred horsemen, chose the matches between stallions and mares for lieutenant was Robertson who produced the winning bloodlines for the farm, including Pleasant Colony.
During Evans" years in racing, trainers who conditioned his horses included John Campo, Angel Cordero, Junior., Leroy Jolley, Ross Pearce, and Christopher Speckert. In 1993, he was inducted into the Virginia Thoroughbred Association Hall of Fame.
Achievements
Membership
Thomas Evans was a member of the Board of Directors of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame and a member of The Jockey Club, the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, and the Virginia Thoroughbred Association.
Connections
Married Elizabeth Parker, June 26, 1935 (divorced). Children: Thomas M., Edward Parker, Robert Sheldon. Married Josephine Schlotman Mitchell, August 7, 1953 (deceased May 1977).