A $1,000 loan produces an industry

Perhaps the most important small business loan Third National Bank ever made was in 1946, when the bank loaned $1,000 to WSM engineers Carl Jenkins, George Reynolds and Aaron Shelton to start a recording studio.

The three engineers called their business Castle Recording Laboratory, taking the name from WSM's claim to be the "Air Castle of the South." Since space was hard to come by, they built the studio in a second-floor suite of the Tulane Hotel at the corner of Seventh and Church. "It was close to WSM," Mr. Shelton said fifty-four years later. "We could sneak out the back door and do a recording session and slip back in."