Trammell Crow

Forbes in 1971 and The Wall Street Journal in 1986 called Mr. Crow the largest landlord in the United States. The Journal said the company he founded was then the nation’s biggest developer. Mr. Crow once had interests in nearly 300 million square feet of developed real estate, comprising 8,000 properties in more than 100 cities. Trammell Crow, whose unusual first name was taken from a family surname, was born in Dallas on June 10, 1914. At 10, he began taking paying odd jobs until his father, a bookkeeper, forbade it. As the Depression deepened, the family needed the young man’s income, from jobs like plucking chickens and unloading boxcars. After graduating from high school in 1932, he worked as a bank teller and studied accounting at night. He passed his C.P.A. exam in 1938 and joined Ernst & Ernst as an auditor. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he returned to Dallas in 1946. He married Margaret Doggett in 1942. She survives him, as do his sons Robert, Howard, Harlan, Trammell S. and Stuart; his daughter, Lucy Billingsley; 16 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.