Namesakes: Dan W. Maddox
We continue our year long series on namesakes this week with a look at Dan W. Maddox. Maddox and his wife Margaret gave financial contributions to the council to build the free-standing rifle range at Camp Craig. As part of the 1994 Capital Development Campaign, they funded the creation of a legitimate shotgun range in Camp Light. Who was Maddox and his wife?
Perhaps not surprisingly, Maddox (and his wife) was an avid outdoorsman. Born in 1910, Maddox was a hunter, hunting everything from quail to big game in Africa and Asia, including a 500 pound black mane lion in 1954. Indeed, in 1969, Maddox was elected to the African Wildlife Leadership Foundation, a foundation that focused on educational programs to foster conservation of African wildlife resources. Maddox was also a leading conservationist and philanthropist.
Maddox made his fortune by founding Associates Capital Corp. He sold this company to Gulf + Westernin 1965 and became the company’s chief executive officer. Gulf + Western began life as a manufacturing and resource extraction company, but with Maddox as head the company shifted gears and began purchasing entertainment companies, such as Paramount Desilu (that’s Star Trek folks!) as well as a number of record companies, including Stax Records. Today, Gulf + Western is ViacomCBS. Maddox served on the boards of numerous other companies and banks until his retirement at age 82 in 1992.
By their deaths, the Maddoxes has amased an estimated $100 million. Outside of Scouting, charitable donations were made to the YMCA, the Hearing Aid Research Center at Vanderbilt, and a dorm at Belmont. The oldest recording studio in Nashville, Studio B (where the classic album The Revelator by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings was recorded), was built by Dan Maddox in 1957 and donated to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1992. Before their passing, the Maddoxes established the Maddox Foundation, a non-profit which would continue the couple’s charitable giving.
The Maddoxes died on a hunting trip in January 1998. Hunting duck in Louisiana, their boat collided with a 110-foot oil rig and sank. The Maddoxes were survived by two daughters, a son, seven grandchildren, and four great-children.
Seen here is Maddox as he appeared in the Tennessean in July 1969.
