Irvin Farman Collection

A native of New York City, Irvin Farman earned a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. After college he served as a B-29 navigator during World War II. He wrote for the Dallas Morning News, the Associated Press, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he was a reporter and columnist. He went on to a public relations career at Witherspoon Advertising & Public Relations, where he worked for 20 years. He later became vice president and director of publications at Fort Worth National Bank. Farman wrote Centennial Story: A History of the Fort Worth Club and Standard of the West: the Justin Story about the Justin Boot Company.

Charles David Tandy was a businessman, philanthropist, and civic leader. He was born in Brownsville in 1918. Tandy’s father was a partner in a wholesale leather business in Fort Worth. Tandy graduated from TCU in 1940, attended Harvard Business School, and served in the United States Navy from 1941 to 1947 as an officer in the Supply Corps. After World War II, Tandy joined his father's business, working on catalogs for leathercraft kits. Tandy reorganized the business and by 1960 had moved its' headquarters to New York. Tandy started a chain of hobby supermarkets in Fort Worth, and the company began buying other retailers including a chain of electronics stores started in Boston known as RadioShack. The business flourished and by the time of Tandy's death in 1978, the Tandy Corporation was a billion-dollar, multinational corporation with 20,000 employees and 7,000 RadioShack outlets, with a corporate headquarters located in downtown Fort Worth.