John B.
Mills
John
B. Mills is one man who was not drawn to Arizona by the State's sunshine or its
ineffable charm. In fact, there was not even a flaring business boom to entice
him out of his native Texas. Perhaps the story of how he did happen to come to
Arizona gives a hint of his success in so many lines of endeavor.
Mr.
Mills was busily drilling oil wells in West Texas in 1943 when he heard that
the Hotel Westward Ho in Phoenix was for sale. In addition to being an oil man,
insurance executive, builder, and active in various other kinds of businesses,
he also had a large interest in a chain of hostelries. He had never stepped
foot inside Arizona, but he decided to look into the situation.
A
representative of the estate that owned the Westward Ho journeyed to Texas to
show Mr. Mills a picture of the fine hotel and to furnish him further data
about the city. (In less than two hours earnest money was wired to New York to
bind the deal.) Soon thereafter, still without having seen the physical
property or entering the State, Mr. Mills went to New York City, where the deal
was closed. Only then, on December 27, 1943, did he actually see the hotel that
he had added to the Associated Federal Hotels, of which he is Chairman of the
Board.
"This
procedure might seem unusual to most people," is the way he understates
the case, "but oil operators are used to closing deals merely with a
telephone call."
John
B. Mills was born Dec. 21, 1898, at McGregor, Texas. His father had emigrated
from Wales, arriving in New York during the "money panic" of 1886. As
was the case with so many Welsh immigrants of that period, he went to work in
the hard coal pits of northeastern Pennsylvania, but soon decided to move
westward, finally settled on a small farm and married a native daughter of the
Lone Star State.
The
son of this union was early impressed with a certain knowledge that hard work
was a necessity- not to gain worldly success, but to exist. Nevertheless,
rigorous early life on a ten-acre farm in southern Texas was not without its
occasional fun. For, despite his abiding faith in hard work and the grinding
scope of his present activities, Mr. Mills is a kindly man. Among his
best-known attributes are the good-natured quip, tension-relieving anecdote, the eye-crinkling grin.
Circumstances
allowed the young boy only six years of formal education, but,
characteristically, he refused to let mere circumstances go unchallenged. For
years every spare minute was devoted to correspondence courses, night classes
the diligent study of law and business
administration.
When
he was still young, the Mills family moved to Galveston, then one of the most active business centers west
of the Mississippi. Still in his early teens, John Mills launched into his
career, beginning as a file clerk and bank runner for W. L. Moody and Company.
This likely was the most fortunate possible choice to be made by a young Texan
with the natural bents and talents of the budding businessman, for the Moody
interests were fluid and diversified to an amazing degree. The young Mr. Mills
treated his job with intense devotion that did not go unrewarded. By the time
he was 37 years of age he had advanced to a lucrative top executive position,
but at that point he decided to strike out on his own. Moving to Dallas, he
entered the oil business and gradually built up companies that now control vast
holdings in most of the major producing areas throughout
the
Southwest. Among firms he heads are the Begol Oil Corporation, San Andres
Production Company and the CeBeth Oil Company.
His
broad insurance experience while with Moody led naturally to later connections
in this field. He became chief executive of Federal Underwriters, Inc., and
more recently, with a small group of friends, he organized the Mercantile
Security Life Insurance Company, a legal reserve stock company which already is
among the top ten percent of such concerns in financial strength.
Widespread
banking experience with the Moody organization led to further activities in
this field and he now holds directorates in the Mercantile National Bank of
Dallas and the First National Bank of Arizona. Construction activities included
the building of the Mercantile Securities Building and the Mercantile Dallas
Building in downtown Dallas and housing developments in Arizona.
Also
while with Moody he had been general manager of the National Hotel Company,
with hostelries across America, so it was almost inevitable that he would
become a Boniface again. He is
chairman of the Board of Associated Federal Hotels, which controls sixteen
hotels in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Puerto Rico and Arizona.
Probably
finding time hanging heavily on his hands, Mr. Mills recently has developed a
deep interest in aluminum. He is chairman of the Board of both the Texas
Aluminum Company of Texas and the Commonwealth Extruding Company of San Juan,
Puerto Rico.
The
calculating way in which Mr. Mills gained his sightunseen interest in Arizona
did not prevent him from falling in love with the place. Occasional visits
after acquiring the Westward Ho gradually became more frequent. In addition to
gaining a wide circle of friends and joining in many local activities, he began
to notice that his Arizona sojourns
improved his health, so it was not too long before he became a
confirmed Arizonan with Phoenix as his home base. True, his widespread business
interests demand frequent trips away from the Valley of the Sun, but it is no
secret that he always returns as quickly as possible.
Thus
far it would appear that John B. Mills is a sort of super-efficient business
machine, but the picture would be incomplete without a mention that he also is
a devoted family man. He is married to the former Miss Bernice Louise Ryan, who
was born on Galveston Island. Their daughter, Elizabeth Louise, is now Mrs.
Richard Dean Hawn, of Dallas, the mother of four children, and their son,
Cecil, also living in Dallas, has two children. Cecil is closely associated
with his father, being president of a
number of the companies of which the elder Mr. Mills is board chairman.
Mr.
Mills is a member of numerous clubs in Texas and Arizona. They include the Arizona, Phoenix and Century
Country Clubs, the Phoenix Press, Kiva and Saddle and Sirloin clubs, and the
oldest organization of its kind in Texas, the venerable Artillery Club of
Galveston, three Dallas country clubs and the Dallas Petroleum Club. A 32nd
Degree Mason, he belongs to the Scottish Rite and Shriners of Dallas, and the
Jesters in Phoenix. In addition, Mr. Mills is past president of the Phoenix
Chamber of Commerce, past president of Roosevelt Council, Boy Scouts of
America, past chapter chairman of Maricopa County Red Cross, and a member of
the Rotary Club of Phoenix. His hobbies are golf, fishing, hunting and riding.
__From
a 1958 Arizona publication