Robert L. Thornton
American banker
Died when: 83 years 189 days (1002 months)Star Sign: Leo
Robert Lee Thornton, Sr. (often R.L.Thornton; 10 August 1880 – 15 February 1964) was an American banker, civic leader, and four-term Mayor of Dallas, Texas.
Thornton had little schooling; his early years were divided between school and farm labor.Later, he was a store clerk and a traveling salesman.
After two unsuccessful business ventures, Thornton began a banking operation in Dallas in 1916, financed by loans from family.The bank progressed to be a Texas-wide institution, and by 1923 it had a national charter.
Thornton served as president (1916–1947) of the bank he founded, the Mercantile Bank and Trust Co, and board chairman (1947–1964).
Thornton quickly became a prominent businessman and community figure, serving as president of the Dallas Chamber of Commerce from 1933 to 1936, and as president of the State Fair of Texas from 1945 to 1960.
He played a major part in securing the Texas Centennial Exposition for Dallas.From 1953 to 1961, Thornton served as mayor of Dallas, promoting city infrastructure projects.
His vigorous promotion of the city and its development earned him the soubriquet Mr.Dallas in the media.His avuncular and countryfied manner saw him often referred to and addressed as Uncle Bob by locals and associates.
Dallas in the 1920s had one of the highest proportions of Klan membership of any U.S. city, just at the time Thornton was rising to prominence, and thirty years after his death there was a claim he had been a Klan member.
Records of any Klan association are scant and have been contested, with his family noting that even during the 1950s and 60s, when Thornton's solutions for gradual integration at times angered African American campaigners, there were no contemporary, nor later, allegations of Klan affiliation, until 1994.
Thornton married Mary Metta Stiles in 1904.They settled in Dallas, raising five children there.Thornton died in 1964.Various roads and places in Dallas are named for him.
Since the 1990s there have been intermittent calls for these place names to be changed on the basis of Thornton's purported involvement with the Klan.
Although no firm evidence of such involvement appears to exist, the claim of his membership is repeated from time-to-time in various media outlets.
Related People
American banker
American banker
President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York