Draft:E. Craig Wall, Sr.

E. Craig Wall, Sr. was a businessman and civic leader in South Carolina, called by the South Carolina Encyclopedia "a driving force in the economic development of Horry County. He was born in Anson County, North Carolina in 1910. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill but left before graduating to sail to China where he worked on an oil barge on the Yangtze River for six months.  After returning to the United States, Wall moved to Conway, South Carolina in the 1930s.  He founded Canal Wood Corporation in 1937 with Hutch Gibson.  Wall was one of the original developers of Litchfield Beach and at one point his businesses owned over 300,000 acres of land in the southeastern United States.

As Canal Wood grew into the largest wood product company in the southeastern United States and became Canal Industries, Wall engaged in many civic activities. In 1974 the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve appointed Wall to be the Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, a branch of the U.S. responsible for implementing the monetary policy set by the Fed. He chaired the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education from 1967 to 1971 and was one of the founders of Coastal Carolina University, where the E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration is named for him. Wall served on the boards of trustees of Davidson College, Clemson University, and Presbyterian College. Addditonally, he served on the boards of directors of the Coastal Educational Foundation, Brookgreen Gardens, the South Carolina Development Board, and the South Carolina Alcoholic Rehabilitation Board, He died of cancer in 1985. In 1978 The Sun News named Wall one of the seven most influential people in the area.

Wall received an honorary degree from Clemson University. He was named to the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Carolinas Entrepreneur Hall of Fame in 2014.

Wall was the grandson of Alonzo C. Shuford and the grandfather of Grier Martin.