Thomas C. Mullins grew up on a farm in Fayetteville, Arkansas, the youngest of 6 siblings. What we know of the farm is that Thomas’s father William Madison Mullins was at one time head of the local fruit growers association, and also kept horses to enter in local races. Thomas received his preparatory education in the public schools of Fayetteville and earned his B.S. in Civil Engineering in 1906 from the University of Arkansas, where he played on the varsity football team. During his years at Arkansas, his cousin John N. Tillman was the President of the University of Arkansas. Tillman was son of Thomas’s older sister Mary and her husband Newton Jasper Tillman.
For about a year following graduation Mullins was a civil and mining engineer with the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. In 1907 he became a member of the Board of Supervisory Engineers of the City of Chicago. A short time thereafter he joined the C.A. Chapman Co. engineering firm in Chicago, with whom he remained until 1913. In that year he was one of the organizers of the Sunlight Coal Co., Boonville, Ind. He was the first manager of the company, was promoted to superintendent of operations a few months later, and in 1916 was made vice-president with headquarters in Indianapolis, Ind. At the same time, he held vice-president positions in several other oil and coal companies in Indiana.
After the United States entered the First World War, Mullins enlisted in the U.S. Army and was commissioned a captain of the 34th Engineers. He married the love of his life, Ruth Wilson Mullins, the day before he shipped out to Europe in 1918. The story of that rushed wedding and deployment is a dramatic tale told in War & Romance!
Mullins served eighteen months in France and was stationed at Bordeaux. He remained in France for a while after the war ended to help with rebuilding infrastructure. After discharge from the Army he held the rank of major in the reserves for several years. He was a life-long Democrat, and served as Mayor of Boonville, Indiana from 1923 until 1926. During his tenure as Mayor, he was approached about running for Governor of Indiana, but demurred. He moved his young family to Chicago in 1928.
When the Sunlight Coal Co. was merged with the properties of the Northern Illinois Coal Corp. in 1928, his jurisdiction was extended to cover all the properties. Mullins was president of the Northern Illinois Coal Corp. from 1929 until it was sold to the Sinclair Coal Co. in 1950. From 1936, he was also vice-president of South-western Illinois Coal in Randolph County, Ill. In 1931 he organized the Midland Electric Coal Corp., Chicago and Indianapolis, and became president of that company as well in 1944. In 1950 he founded and was president of the Jet Oil Co.
The Mullins family resided in the Hyde Park area of Chicago, and sent their children to the University of Chicago Lab School. Their home was a warm and welcoming place. Thomas’s business advice to his children was, “Always be on someone’s payroll,” advice he clearly modeled!
Thomas battled a thoracic aortic aneurysm in the last years of his life, and died in 1954 just a few years before surgery was developed to treat this condition. His wife Ruth endowed a professorship chair in her husband’s name at the University of Arkansas.
© 2013 W. Mullins