T. Coleman Du Pont - Business Career

Business Career

Coleman du Pont started his career in the family's coal mines, the Central Coal & Iron Company, and soon pursued opportunities in street railways. In 1894, He began working as the general manager of the Johnson Street Rail Company in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

With his cousins, Alfred I. du Pont and Pierre S. du Pont, Coleman bought out the family's explosives business in Delaware. He was president from 1902 until 1915, during which time he oversaw the acquisitions of more than one hundred competitors. He was a key player in the formation of the holding company, E. I du Pont de Nemours Company of New Jersey. In 1907, the DuPont Company was sued for antitrust violations and Coleman later sold off his stake of the business in 1914.

Coleman du Pont had control of the Hotel McAlpin, Claridge Atlantic City, Wallick's, and other American hotels. Together with Lucius M. Boomer, president of Boomer-du Pont Properties Corporation, Thomas Coleman DuPont owned a number of other hotels. In 1918, they purchased the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, then in 1920 the Willard Hotel in Washington, D. C. and in 1925 the company purchased The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia from the heirs of the founder, George C. Boldt.

In 1915 Coleman du Pont acquired control of The Equitable Life Assurance Society from J. P. Morgan and was responsible for the building of the Equitable Life Building in New York City, once the largest building in the city.