Floyd Bostwick Odlum (March 30, 1892, Union City, Michigan – June 17, 1976, Indio, California) was a wealthy lawyer and industrialist. He has been described as "possibly the only man in the United States who made a great fortune out of the Depression," [1]. After struggling as a corporate attorney in Salt Lake City, Odlum received an offer to a law clerk at a New York firm, and in 1921 became Vice-President of his primary client, Electric Bond and Share Company. In 1923, Odlum, a friend, and their wives pooled a total of $39,600 and formed the United States Company to speculate in purchases of utilities and general securities. Within two years, the company's net assets had increased 17 fold to nearly $700,000 [2]. In 1928, Odlum incorporated Atlas Utilities Company to take over the common stock of his other company.
During the summer of 1929, Odlum was one of the few industrial moguls to believe that the boom on Wall Street could not continue much longer, and he sold one half of Atlas's holdings, as well as nine million dollars in new securities to investors. He had $14,000,000 in cash and short term notes when the stock market crashed.[3] During the next few years, Atlas Utilities bought up stock in less fortunate investment companies at a Depression-reduced price. After Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated President of the United States, Odlum shifted gears, selling off utilities before stronger regulation set in, and switching to large scale financing. By 1933, Odlum was one of the 10 wealthiest men in the United States. Besides Atlas Corporation, he had a major stake in RKO Studios, Convair, Northeast Airlines, and Bonwit Teller, among other businesses, and was associated in aviation business with the well-known financier George Newell Armsby. His association with Armsby provided a link to the Armsby's and Cowdin's enterpriseTranscontinental Air Transport, Inc.
Odlum sold RKO to Howard Hughes.[4] Odlum was later an investor in the 1954 production of the Broadway show The Pajama Game -- during which actress Shirley MacLaine was discovered by Paramount Pictures producer Hal Wallis -- and convinced Goldman Sachs's head Sidney Weinberg to invest as well.[5]
Odlum was first married (in 1915) to Hortense McQuarrie, first woman department store head; his second wife was aviatrix Jackie Cochran. Odlum and Cochran were close friends of Amelia Earhart and her husband George P. Putnam and the Odlums were financial backers of Earhart's flying activities. They developed the Cochran-Odlum (C-O) Ranch in Indio, California where they lived after the 1950s.
Odlum along with a business associate L.Boyd Hatch also purchased and developed Hatch's Camp, also known as St. Ann's Retreat, or Pine Glenn Cove, a mountainous retreat in Logan Canyon, Utah. In 2006, Pine Glenn Cove was placed in the national register of historic places.
Odlum died in 1976 at the age of 84.
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