Ferdinand E Kuhn

Early years

Kuhn was born in Nashville, Tennessee on September 3, 1861, to German immigrants from the Kingdom of Württemberg, Ferdinand and Barbara (Müller) Kuhn. He was the youngest of eight children. His father was a brewer.

Studies

Kuhn attended the local parochial and public high schools, then went to the University of Notre Dame, where he was a member of the rowing team and earned a BSc. He was once part of a committee of the Boat Club appointed to make arrangements for a new boathouse. He graduated in 1883.

Personal

He was married to Katherine "Kate" Wall on April 15, 1884, in her hometown of Springfield, Kentucky. She was of Irish descent. Her father, Frank Wall, was a steamboat engineer on the Mississippi River who was born in County Londonderry in modern-day Northern Ireland, and was the namesake of Wall, Pennsylvania. Frank's wife was from Columbus, Georgia; she was born in County Tyrone.

They had nine children; six boys and three girls. Kuhn was the father of prominent Vanderbilt quarterback Doc Kuhn and, through another son, the grandfather of radio and television announcer Dick Dudley.

Kuhn's house from 1898 until his death is now called Frassati House, and is the building on Vanderbilt's campus that houses the University's Catholic campus ministry.

Board of Public Works

Kuhn was a secretary and city recorder for the Board of Public Works and Affairs from 1884 until 1903. Upon his resignation he was dubbed "beyond question the most capable man that (sic) ever served the Board".

Initiation

Kuhn was initiated into the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal service organization, in Louisville, Kentucky on July 1, 1899. He was one of the first five from south of Louisville to be initiated on that day. The other four were: Messrs. H. J. Grimes, Will J. Varley, William Smith, and Michael M. McCormack.

Southern expansion

Ferdinand Kuhn was one of the Nashville Catholics who had advocated expansion into Tennessee. The 1900 compromise allowed for the formation of Nashville Council No. 544. Kuhn, who became Tennessee's first State Deputy, succeeded Daniel J. Callahan as the master ceremonialist, presiding at the institution ceremonies of councils in Florida (1900), Alabama (1902), Louisiana (1902), and Georgia (1902). His degree work at the opening of New Orleans Council No. 714 in November 1902 was long remembered as 'something out of this world'.

He was appointed Supreme Knight Hearn as the first Territorial Deputy of Tennessee, and in that capacity organized councils in Memphis, Knoxville, and Chattanooga in Tennessee; Atlanta and Augusta in Georgia; Birmingham, Mobile, and Huntsville in Alabama, Meridian, Mississippi, New Orleans, Louisiana; Little Rock and Fort Smith in Arkansas. He was once Master of the Fourth Degree for Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, Later he remained Master of the Fourth Degree for Tennessee.

State deputy

Kuhn was the first state deputy of Tennessee from 1902 to 1908. In 1920 he was Grand Knight of Nashville Council 544.

Shoe merchant

Kuhn was president and treasurer of the Kuhn, Cooper, Geary & Company shoe store, founded in 1903 with Ed P. Cooper and P. J. Geary. The store was located on North Summer Street (Fifth Avenue North).

It was once the largest retail shoe store in the South, and earned a reputation as the premiere footwear store in downtown Nashville. The most up-to-date electric lighting and holophone reflectors provided lighting for the store. Its front window displayed shoes on revolving pedestals. The inside walls were marble lined, and inlaid mirrors ran along the back wall. Hub Perdue, a former Major league pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Braves before he managed the Nashville Volunteers, worked briefly at the store in 1921.

Kuhn was once president of the Retail Shoe Dealers' Association, and the Retail Credit Men's Association.

Nashville Vols

Kuhn was the president of the Nashville Vols baseball club from 1907 to 1910, including the 1908 Southern Association championship team. He was preceded in that capacity by Bradley Walker. Kuhn was head of a group of men who purchased the team after a last place finish in 1907. Along with Kuhn the group consisted of: James B. Carr (president of B. H. Stief Jewelry Co.); Thomas James Tyne (lawyer and state legislator); J. T. Connor (real estate); James A. Bowling (contractor); Robert L. Bolling (lawyer); Rufus E. Fort (physician); and William G. Hirsig (automobile and tire dealer). Well known attorney S. A. Champion supplied legal services. The group envisioned an ambitious project of stadium renovations at Sulphur Dell, and managed to cull $50,000. Kuhn was selected to head the Board of Directors. He went on a trip to Ponce de Leon Park in Atlanta to observe a modern park and plan renovations.

1908

Kuhn hired Bill Bernhard as manager. In 1908 the team won the Southern pennant by beating the New Orleans Pelicans in the last game, described by Grantland Rice as the "greatest game ever played in Dixie".

Nashville entered the final day of that season on September 19 with an opportunity to win the league pennant. The championship would be decided by the last game of the season at Sulphur Dell. Both teams had the same number of losses (56), but the Pelicans were in first place with 76 wins to the Vols' second-place 74. A crowd of 11,000 spectators, including Kuhn, sat next to Mayor James Stephens Brown, and saw Carl Sitton hurl a three-hit, 1–0 shutout, giving Nashville their third Southern Association pennant by 0.1 percentage points (57.25% to 57.14%). Ted Breitenstein was New Orleans's pitcher.

One account reads: "By one run, by one point, Nashville has won the Southern League pennant, nosing New Orleans out literally by an eyelash. Saturday's game, which was the deciding one, between Nashville and New Orleans was the greatest exhibition of the national game ever seen in the south and the finish in the league race probably sets a record in baseball history."

The championship banner was presented to Kuhn by league president William Marmaduke Kavanaugh, and it hung over the window of Kuhn's shoe store until the banner raising ceremony on Opening Day, 1909.

Resignation

Following the 1910 season, Kuhn resigned as the team's president due to the heavy work load with the Vols and his shoe store. He was succeeded by Hirsig.

Anti-tuberculosis campaign

He was once president of Tennessee's state Anti-Tuberculosis League.