T. Coleman du Pont

Du Pont was born at Louisville, Kentucky. He was a cousin of U.S. Senator Henry A. du Pont and great-grandson of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, the founder of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. Du Pont attended preparatory school at Urbana University and earned an engineering degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While at MIT, he was initiated into the Sigma Chi fraternity.

He married a cousin, Alice Elsie du Pont (granddaughter of Charles I. du Pont), and in 1891 they had a daughter, Alice Hounsfield du Pont. In 1921, the younger Alice married Clayton Douglass Buck, future U.S. Senator and two-term governor of Delaware. She inherited her father's family home, Buena Vista, and in 1965 the Bucks sold it to the State of Delaware for $1. The state now operates it as the Buena Vista Conference Center. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

Du Pont started his career in the family's coal mines, the Central Coal and 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, T. Coleman du Pont 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; he sold off his stake of the business in 1914.

T. 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 and husband of Jørgine Boomer, du Pont 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, 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.

Du Pont retired from business activities in 1915 and became involved in Republican Party politics, as a member of the Republican National Committee from 1908 until 1930. It was largely under his leadership that the Union Republicans and Regular Republicans came back together and built the modern Delaware Republican Party.

Du Pont was appointed to the U.S. Senate on July 7, 1921, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of U.S. Senator Josiah O. Wolcott. During this term, he served with the Republican majority in the 67th Congress. However, he lost his bid to complete the term in a special election on November 7, 1922. On the same day he also lost his bid for the full term to follow, in both instances losing to Democrat Thomas F. Bayard, Jr., a Wilmington lawyer who was married to one of du Pont's cousins.

Du Pont was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1924, defeating the incumbent Republican U.S. Senator L. Heisler Ball for the nomination, and going on to defeat Democrat James M. Tunnell, a Georgetown, Delaware lawyer. During this term, he served with the Republican majority in the 69th and 70th Congress, until health problems caused him to resign.

In all, du Pont served two separate terms, one from July 7, 1921, until November 21, 1922, during the administration of U.S. President Warren G. Harding, and the other from March 4, 1925, until December 9, 1928, during the administration of U.S. President Calvin Coolidge. In 1927, he introduced a bill proposing the construction of "a coast-to-coast superhighway, five hundred feet wide, as direct as possible from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast". However, this proposed superhighway never came to be, due in part to the economic pressures of the Great Depression. The later years of his life were marked by his implication in the Teapot Dome scandal, and by lawsuits over various Florida real estate deals. In 1922, du Pont and his wife donated property on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland to the Del-Mar-Va Council of the Boy Scouts of America for development of what is now known as Camp Rodney.