James Walker Tufts

James Walker Tufts (February 11, 1835 – February 3, 1902) is known for his founding of Pinehurst, North Carolina and for his development of a successful business in silver plate tableware. He also founded the Arctic Soda Fountain Co. and eventually merged with A. D. Puffer & Sons (Boston, Massachusetts), John Matthews (New York City, New York), and Charles Lippincott (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) to form the American Soda Fountain Co. Tufts was the inventor of the Arctic Soda Fountain and was installed as the first president of the merger that formed American Soda Fountain.

Tufts Arctic Soda Fountain ("Saxon" model) at the U.S. Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia, 1876

Biography Tufts was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts on February 11, 1835, to Leonard Tufts and Hepzebah Fosdick Tufts. He was "an entrepreneur, inventor, and philanthropist. He rose from being a sixteen-year-old drug store apprentice to becoming a wealthy businessman who had the vision and determination to build Pinehurst, in only six months." In 1895, Tufts initially purchased , and eventually purchased an additional , of land for approximately $1.25 per acre in the North Carolina Sandhills, with the vision of building a "health resort for people of modest means". Pinehurst was controlled by the Tufts family until 1970. James Tufts's son Leonard, and his grandson, Richard, succeeded him.