Mr. Falls was born in Macon, Fayette county, Tennessee, on the 20th of February, 1841, a son of Gilbreath and Frances (Manees) Falls. His paternal grandfather emigrated from Iredell county, North Carolina, to Athens, Alabama, and during his stay there, Gilbreath Falls was born. From there the family removed to Somerville, Tennessee. The grandfather was one of the first of the race of hardy aristocrats who moved across the mountains and created that wonderful community from La Grange up to old Belmont and across to Bolivar. The progenitor of the Falls family in this country was Charles Falls, who came from England in 1635. The paternal great-great-grandfather fell in action during the Revolutionary war, whereupon his fourteen-year-old son, with his father’s sword, slew a Tory in the act of robbing the body. Gilbreath Falls came to Memphis in 1845 and under the name of G. Falls & Company he engaged in the buying and exporting of cotton, being active in the conduct of that business for many years. He was one of the most prominent and farsighted business men of his day and was held in high confidence and esteem in Memphis.

In the acquirement of his education James Napoleon Falls attended private schools in Memphis and later attended school at McLemoresville, Tennessee. He completed his literary course at Antioch College, Yellow Sulphur Springs, Ohio. He returned home a short time before the outbreak of the Civil war and enlisted promptly in the Bluff City Grays, later Company B, One Hundred and Fifteenth Regiment, Tennessee Infantry, and was later mounted under General Forrest. He fought from Belmont to Gainesville, with the exception of a short time after the battle of Murfreesboro, where he surrendered to be with a mortally wounded brother, but escaped immediately after the brother’s death. He received severe wounds at the battle of Shiloh.

 In 1865, upon the close of the war, Mr. Falls returned to Memphis and joined his father’s firm, then known as Falls & Cash. James Napoleon Falls was a pioneer in the cotton seed oil industry. His first mill was built in 1873 at Friar Point, Mississippi, later he erected the Valley Oil Mill in Memphis, and subsequently the Dixie Oil Mill in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Merchants Cotton Press & Storage Company was then the largest institution in Memphis and Mr. Falls was president of that concern for twenty years, being a dominant factor in its continued progress. He had the distinction of being the first man to establish a factory for the manufacture of ice in Memphis, business being conducted under the name of the People’s Ice Company, and in that connection he sunk the first artesian well in this city, where the Linden station is now located. As president of the Chickasaw Building Company he erected the Falls building, the largest exclusive cotton office building in the world.

At Walnut Bend, Arkansas, on the 8th of November, 1871, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Falls and Miss Clara Dunn, a daughter of Dr. Lawson Biscoe and Malinda (Lewis) Dunn. To their union the following children were born: Clara Frances, now Mrs. J. Alexander Austin; Lawson Dunn; Minnie Lee, now Mrs. Rayburn Dunscomb; John William (II); and Melinda Elizabeth, the wife of William Poston Maury.

Mr. Falls’ life was an active and varied one. For four years he was a soldier in as good a company as the Confederacy boasted of, and for half a century he was a leader throughout the mid-south in business, manufacturing, financial, social and religious circles.

Source: Moore, John T, and Austin P. Foster. Tennessee, the Volunteer State, 1769-1923. Chicago: S.J. Clarke Pub. Co, 1923.