Thomas Elmer Braniff

Thomas Elmer Braniff (December 6, 1883 – January 10, 1954) was an American entrepreneur. He was a co-founder of Braniff International Airways, along with his brother Paul Revere Braniff. Known as Tom Braniff, he was also a noted insurance pioneer in Oklahoma. In 1928 he formed Paul R. Braniff, Inc., with his brother Paul Braniff, to operate schedule air carrier flights between Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Thomas Elmer Braniff was born on December 6, 1883, in Salina, Kansas. He was the oldest of six children that included his younger brother Paul, as well as two other brothers and two sisters. His parents were John A. Braniff (father) and Mary Catherine Baker Braniff (mother). His father was an early pioneer settler in Kansas having moved to the region from the Altoona, Pennsylvania area where he was a farmer. Tom's family was of Irish ancestry, with his grandfather Patrick Braniff, having migrated to the United States from Ireland in approximately 1800.

Tom Braniff's family moved from Salina to Kansas City, Kansas, in the mid-1890s. Tom attended high school at Kansas City High School and worked for Armour and Company, which was a meat packing entity. He also worked as a copy boy at the Kansas City Star newspaper. In 1900, the family moved to the new Oklahoma Territory. Tom's father, John, had also worked in the insurance industry and Tom joined his father in the business at Oklahoma City. Thomas Elmer Braniff was not to remain in his father's insurance business for long choosing instead to create his own agency. However, due to age restrictions for opening an agency in Oklahoma City, Tom had to look outside the area to form his agency. He went to Bridgeport, Oklahoma, and opened his agency. Bridgeport was twenty five miles to the West of Oklahoma City.

From this agency Tom sold fire and tornado insurance. Oklahoma, known for its violent tornadoes, spawned a twister that wiped out the fledgling agency as well as the insurance company that had to pay the claims. The tornado hit the Bridgeport settlement late at night destroying much of the town. Young Tom had sold many policies, door to door, to the settlers. The claims were too numerous for the agency or the insurance company to survive and Tom Braniff had to start over. Tom used the earnings from his new business to pay off the claims from the Bridgeport tornado that had not already been settled.

At the age of 18 in 1901, Tom returned to his home of Oklahoma City and founded a partnership with Frank Merrill. Merrill was a 40-year-old traveling salesman and the two elected to sell farm insurance. The two unlikely partners formed the Merrill and Braniff Agency. Their first-year earnings netted them US$400 each, which was barely enough to keep the agency in business.

On October 26, 1912, he married Bess Thurman. They had two children; a son, Thurman Braniff, and a daughter Jeanne Braniff. Thurman was killed in a training aircraft crash at Oklahoma City in 1938 and Jeanne Braniff died while giving childbirth ten years later in 1948.

Tom Braniff bought out Merrill in 1917 and renamed the firm T.E. Braniff Insurance Company. In 1924, he created Braniff Investment, Co., by buying out a partner in a loan firm. By this point Braniff had created one of the most successful insurance firms in the Southwest and was well known for a creative plan that involved using surety bonds to guarantee first-mortgage debt.

In 1922, Thomas Elmer Braniff, began building the first skyscraper in Oklahoma City. Named The Braniff Building, it housed Braniff's business entities and served as the main company headquarters beginning on July 1, 1923. Braniff continued on to found Prudential Fire Insurance Company in 1928 and then in 1929, Kansas City Fire Insurance Company.