REALTORS® met in the city's Armory on June 19 and were called to order by President Samuel S. Thorpe of Minneapolis. After an invocation and welcoming speeches, President Thorpe paused the proceedings "for a few minutes while we have this photograph taken."

Head called the gavel a good symbol. "As our navy protects the honor of our national affairs, the members of this Association should protect the honor in every respect of the dealings in real estate.

President Thorpe accepted the gavel and put it to immediate use. "This represents more than a piece of wood," he said. "The American flag is in this. We certainly appreciate that and hope to keep it for many, many years."

97 years later the gavel can still be found in the NAR Archives collection.

From 1931 to 1954 one of the most popular radio programs in the country featured two storekeepers in the small town of Pine Ridge, Arkansas. The pair kept Americans laughing despite hard times that included the Great Depression and Second World War.

On May 24, 1939, in cooperation with the National Association of Real Estate Boards, they devoted part of their show to "what things make for safety when a family goes into home ownership today and some of the things the family should look for when it is choosing a homesite or a home," according to the association's press release.

The duo’s fame grew so much that the people of Waters, Arkansas, inspiration for the fictional Pine Ridge, persuaded the post office to legally change the name to Pine Ridge in 1936.

Unfortunately no recording or script of that episode is known to exist, according to the Jot ‘Em Down Store and Museum in Pine Ridge.

The week-long event began on Monday April 9. Saturday the 14th was "Children's Day" and included a special invitation to high school students, "regarded by the show management as the next generation of home builders." Each ticket sold to the show included a chance on winning a drawing for a city lot valued at $1,000. On the last day, Sunday the 15th, the lot was won by George Krause of Milwaukee.

A near tragedy occurred the Saturday before the show opened. Local REALTORS® Frank Armitage, O. J. Schenck and J. M. Granger were driving home after preparing the auditorium for the show when "their machine was struck by a street car," the Journal noted. Armitage was injured, but his place as Chairman of Audits and Admissions was ably filled by his son, REALTOR® David F. Armitage.

In January 1940 a blizzard hit the Colorado Springs area, keeping some REALTORS® away from NAREB's South Central Regional Conference. Attendance was still good with 361 paid registrations. Traveling by train the St. Louis delegation numbered the largest at 57, including four spouses.

According to the National Real Estate Journal the speakers and panel discussions "were enthusiastically received by the attending Realtors." Entertainment included banquets, an ice carnival, and a program of early American dances presented by Lloyd Shaw and the Cheyenne Mountain Dancers.

When he became owner of Mount Vernon at age 21 the estate comprised 2,700 acres. At the time of his death Washington's holdings exceeded 63,000 acres in seven states.

REALTORS® joined their fellow Americans in celebrating the 200th birthday of the Father of the Country. 12,000 communities across America set up Washington bicentennial commissions. The national chairman was President Herbert Hoover, who opened the celebration on February 22 with a radio address.

Chadbourn told the Journal, “The advantage of a distinguishing mark by which the public may know the responsible, expert real estate man from the curbstoner who possesses no such qualifications, is being warmly welcomed by the public.”

REALTOR® would go on to be copyrighted and patented. For the rest of his long life Chadbourn was known as “Father Realtor."

Corinne Griffith was certainly the most glamorous speaker at the convention. She made sixty pictures, retiring as an actress in 1932. Her performance in the silent film "The Divine Lady" earned a 1929 Academy Award nomination.

One of her greatest achievements was building on each of the four corners of Wilshire Boulevard and South Beverly Drive. All of the buildings were grey. "That started a grey trend," Griffith said. "At a Chamber of Commerce dinner I was introduced as the lady who has turned Beverly Hills grey overnight."

Griffith was also the wife of Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall. She wrote the original lyrics to the team's fight song, "Hail to the Redskins."

Other notable speakers at NAREB's first Florida convention included Eddie Rickenbacker, president of Eastern Airlines and World War I flying ace; Thomas J. Watson, chairman of the board of IBM; and Dr. G. Rowland Collins, dean of New York University's school of commerce, accounts and finance.

Tensions were running high that year. In June North Korean forces attacked South Korean and American troops, beginning a war that would involve the Chinese in less than a month. A year earlier the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb.

“They have the complacent feeling that ‘it can’t happen here’” Nixon said, “that the homes of those who oppose the Communist regime are confiscated in other countries, but there is no danger of it here.

“One of the prime objectives of the Communist movement here in the United States is to tear down the idea of pride in property ownership. This is part of the Communist long-range program to prepare us to accept the Communist doctrine that everything tangible is the property of the state and not of the individual.”

Grateful REALTORS® adopted a resolution to “commend Representative Richard M. Nixon for his forthright exposition, at the convention, of the communistic peril which faces America today.”

A month later Nixon was elected a United States Senator from California. Two years later he was on Dwight D. Eisenhower’s winning ticket to be Vice President of the United States.

(Read more of Nixon's speech in the Nov. 1950 issue of California Real Estate.)

Local historian Roy W. Nagle had long known the popular centenarian. Parke “has had some major part in every forward-going movement in this community,” Nagle said. He also “led in promoting and guiding industrial real estate activities for the betterment of Buffalo.”

Parke remembered when the young Buffalo Board joined the New York State Association and the National Association -- Buffalo REALTORS® were “jiners,” he recalled.

He served three terms as President of the Buffalo Board and one as President of the New York State Association. He helped in writing the NAR Code of Ethics in 1913.

At his centennial party a reporter asked Parke which year of his life he had enjoyed the most. “All of it,” he replied without pause. “The best time of my life? All of it.”

Fenton Parke died February 6, 1967.

At NAREB's Twentieth Annual Convention in 1927 she had the distinction of addressing the delegates in Seattle. Perego stressed that women were not limited to success in residential real estate. "It is true that many women make their start in the real estate business selling homes because they seem naturally adapted to this line," she said, but added "the only continue in this field until they 'find' themselves and develop a broader knowledge of real estate, then they invade any branch they choose."

In 1945 she subdivided land in the center of San Francisco that would be called Perego Heights. In the 1940s she broadcast a weekly radio show on home maintenance and interior decorating, and covered the same subjects in a column for the San Francisco Chronicle. She taught Apartment House Management in the University of California Extension Division and authored a book, "Apartment House Ownership and Management."

Twenty years after the Seattle Meeting Perego spoke to the Women's Council at NAREB's 1947 Convention in San Francisco. Her career would span six decades and over fifty years.

The first full-time staff hired by the National Association of Real Estate Boards, Tom Ingersoll served as Secretary (Executive Vice President today) from 1911 to 1922. Also referred to as “The most popular man in Realtydom,” everybody associated with the organization knew who Tom was.

It didn’t take him long to win over REALTORS®. Historian Pearl Janet Davies wrote of the 1913 Winnipeg Convention when “Ingersoll was carried around the hall on the shoulders of delegates. (He) had already become ‘dear old Tom.’” At that meeting the National Association's president, Alexander Taylor, praised the hard-working secretary: “We have a man in this organization…whose heart throbs and beats with the work we are doing; who is giving his life, his fidelity, and his strength to the building of this organization. In referring to that man I do not believe I am obliged to use his name. You all know him (cries of ‘Ingersoll’).”

Eleven years later in 1933, Ingersoll fell ill after returning from the National Convention in Chicago. He died at his ranch in La Habra Heights at age 62, with his wife and two sons at his bedside. In July of that year publications across the country gave REALTORS® the bad news.

Writing in 1955, Cleveland REALTOR® Raymond T. Cragin recalled Ingersoll, Taylor, and others from the early years. “The mainspring of NAREB during this period was Tom Ingersoll,” Cragin wrote. He was “a master…in the early promotion of the organization. In my book Tom Ingersoll was a great man.”

NAREB Executive Secretary Herbert U. Nelson remembered his predecessor as well. “Tom represented in a unique way the very life and spirit of the National Association. I think he was its real founder.”

Finally there was the annual Hi-Jinks dinner in the Del Monte dining room, “notable for the absence of speech-making.” Movie star Monte Blue was a special guest.

After the fun, when the REALTORS® began to return home, the June, 1924 National Real Estate Journal noted that the Jinks “is proving again the old principle that those who learn to play together also learn to work together."

Fifty years later NAR historian Pearl Janet Davies would write, “The National Association of Real Estate Boards arose from a realization by men in the real estate business that their business had within it the possibility of governing itself. The association was formed- as some such organization would inevitably have been formed- because real estate matters are deeply matters of the general welfare.”

Judd also chaired the critical Committee on Form of Organization, which included a representative of all boards in attendance and worked all of the first day of May 12 and into that night to hammer out a constitution and by-laws. The Chicago Board’s gifted counsel, Colonel Nathan William MacChesney, provided legal advice when needed. He would go on to represent NAR for almost forty years.

The founders expected a Code of Ethics to be written and approved (it was, five years later) and the by-laws required a standing committee on Code of Ethics. Other standing committees included National Legislation, State Legislation, and Taxation, as hot a topic then as now. An entire evening was devoted to “The Burden of Taxation as We Have Felt It.”

The board presidents were asked what goals the proposed organization should have. Their replies were first for standards in ethics and business practice; second for exchanging information and statistics on the real estate business; and for all involved to promote real estate ownership and development. Separating themselves from unethical “sharks” and “curbstone brokers” was a primary concern. As REALTOR® and future Seattle Mayor George W. Dilling said, they sought “to assure to the buyer and to the seller the services of responsible and trustworthy agents.”

Hard-working Realtor Edward A. Halsey of Chicago doubled as the first Executive Secretary from 1908-1909. Shortly after the historic meeting he published a magazine account of the proceedings, “United Realty.” Over one thousand copies were mailed to real estate boards, newspapers, libraries, and colleges and universities.

The first Realtors expected this real estate organization to survive, unlike others previous to it, and decided the second annual convention would be held in Detroit. Lobbying hard for the Motor City was William W. Hannan. A year later, in his home town, Hannan would be elected NAR’s second president.

Other founders included the third president, Alexander S. Taylor of Cleveland. Historian Davies wrote “Taylor will always be remembered as the red-headed giant whose evangelism…breathed life into new real estate boards all over the country.” Then there was Samuel S. Thorpe of Minneapolis, who “led the transition of the Association from a loosely organized fraternal group to a working body with a full-time executive.”

By June of 1913 Judd was president and “the Association was ready to burst into major action that profoundly fulfilled its purpose.”

The early years were lean for NAR. Davies wrote: “The first years were the hardest. They were an era of getting acquainted, and of talk, just talk. There was confusion and hesitation among the volunteer executives before functions and procedures were defined. First commitments in national affairs were very cautious… but not once did expectation die down.”

Read more about NAR's first days in United Realty, the official proceedings of the founding meeting (15M Adobe Acrobat file).

The November issue of California Real Estate Magazine trumpeted the news of Merriam's election. "As in the 60's when partisanship gave way to the ticket for the Union so in 1934, the Democrats and Republicans alike joined hands at the polls." Looking forward to January's inauguration, the magazine noted "It is believed that this will be one of the most auspicious events in the State's colorful history. A large number of Realtors will attend."

Four years later CREA again stood behind Merriam in his bid for re-election. This time Democratic State Senator Culbert L. Olson won the office.

"Governor Frank" was a friend to California REALTORS® for the rest of his life, installing the presidents and officers of CREA for almost twenty years. When he could not attend the Association's 1955 inaugural three months before his death, a redwood grove was dedicated as a living memorial to him.