Business Genius, Civic Leader

Business genius went into the enterprises directed by Harry A. Lurton, one of the younger men of Pensacola who made a success in several directions, and whose progress was marked by an interest in the upbuilding of his home city, as well as by his own individual advancement.

Harry Lurton was born in Pensacola, January 14, 1887, son of James W. Lurton and Aline Lurton. His father was a Kentuckian, but for a number of years was with the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, as Superintendent Harry Lurton was educated in the schools of Pensacola. He was an employee of the Louisville and Nashville, next representing the J. P. Williams Company of Savannah, Ga., at the Pensacola headquarters of the company, which conducted a local grocery in connection with the business. A connection with the Jennings Naval Stores business followed, and he remained with this company until the outbreak of the World War.

As a second lieutenant of infantry, Mr. Lurton was stationed at Camp Hancock, Augusta, Ga. He held the rank of major in the United States Reserve Corps.

After the war Mr. Lurton organized the Lurton-Hardaker Company, a Naval Stores concern. In 1924 the present company was organized, with a capital of half a million dollars, and the business was greatly expanded. The Lurton Company, of which he was president, was one of the largest naval stores and wholesale grocery businesses of the South. The company owned thousands of acres of timberland in Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Escambia counties. When the Lurton Company was organized it took over and expanded the Lurton-Hardaker Company and also absorbed the business of the Consolidated Naval Stores Company, in the west Florida territory. The company's offices and merchandise department were located in its own two-story brick building, adjacent to the yards of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and with the tracks of the Frisco system in front, these being the two roads that served Pensacola and its territory. Handling its own large receipts on its own yards, the Lurton Company also provided facilities for the naval stores handled at Pensacola for Taylor, Lowenstein and Company of Mobile, Ala., and E. C. Hughes of Mobile. Its wholesale trade covered the Pensacola territory and in addition, the company owned and operated three "Piggly Wiggly" stores in Pensacola and one in DeFuniak Springs.

Across the railroad tracks from the main warehouse the company had an additional warehouse, 60 by 160 feet in size, where the produce business was carried on. This building was equipped with a cold storage plant, and otherwise adapted for the satisfactory handling of fruits and green vegetables. At the naval stores yards the company had in operation four five-thousand-barrel tanks, a total capacity in use of twenty thousand barrels, with three other reserve tanks for turpentine, with capacity of five thousand barrels each. In the storage shed there was capacity for twelve thousand empty barrels, while the storage capacity for rosin was enormous. All of the naval stores coming by water to Pensacola were landed on the dock near the Lurton offices and warehouse.

Mr. Lurton was a member of the Pensacola Chamber of Commerce, of the Rotary Club, and of the Pensacola Country Club. He was at the head of the West Florida Receiving Home, a part of the Florida Home Society for children.

He was married at Pensacola to Miss Georgia Boyer; they had two children, Carolyn and Harriet Ann. Harry A. & Georgia Boyer Lurton are buried in St. John's 5 North Section 65.