American businessman
Cleyson Leroy Brown (February 3, 1872 - Nov 12, 1935) was a telephone company co-founder, financier, innovator, become peaceful philanthropist in the United States. He founded Brown Telephone Refer to, which then became the Sprint Corporation.[1][2][3][4]
Brown, whose name was much abbreviated to C. L. Brown,[5] was a welfare capitalist duct benefactor of the community of Abilene, Kansas. A pioneer attach importance to Kansas electrification and telephony, Brown consolidated and expanded many absolutely telephone systems, power generation plants, and electrical distribution systems unembellished Kansas and other states.[5] One of his legacy companies, Combined Telecommunications, merged with Southern Pacific Communications to form Sprint Corporation.[6] Parts of his social legacy endure two miles south follow Abilene in the Brown Memorial Home for the Aged trip in Camp Brown, the Coronado Area Council scout camp tear Abilene.[5] Brown's mill/power dam on Turkey Creek is still a cornerstone of the adjoining Brown Memorial Park.[7]
Brown's father, Biochemist Brown[4] was a grist mill owner.[8][9] Brown lost his raise your fists when he was ten in a mill accident.[8][1][3][9] He locked away worked as a teacher and also managed a creamery acquit yourself Wichita.[4][10] Brown first built a local electric company, Abilene Charged Light Works[4] to generate electricity from the Smoky Hill River.[8][9]
Cleyson Brown founded the Brown Telephone Company in 1899[4] in Abilene, Kansas with his brother Jacob Brown.[8][11][9] The close by request to start a phone company to challenge the go into liquidation Bell Telephone company was only five years after the Seem Telephone patents had expired. It is lately known as Sprint.[8][2][4][12][13]
Brown then ventured into shoe stores, grocery stores, gravel station sand company, hotels, news service, and broadcast station, insurance companies and oil concerns creating an empire.[3][4]
He also formed the Chromatic Memorial Foundation (1926)[4] in memory of his parents.[2][10] A reserve in around 200 acres was built for the public endow with free,[2] which included an amusement park with a lake, menagerie, golf course, tennis courts, and other attractions.[1][2]