An able representative of the second generation of REALTOR® leaders, Newton Camp Farr*, MAI, paralleled the career of his father, Marvin A. Farr. He carried on the leadership of Farr and Company, founded in 1872, and followed in the footsteps of his father as president of the Chicago Real Estate Board. Both served on the executive committee of the National Association of Real Estate Boards, the senior Farr being one of the founders of the Association.
Mr. Farr graduated from Cornell University with a degree in civil engineering, and made engineering his first career. He brought it into play a second time during World War I, when he joined the Signal Corps and later was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Air Service. He was assistant U.S. resident engineer with Construction Company No. 12 in England until after the Armistice.
Mr. Farr was a member of the War Department's Advisory Council on Real Estate, president of Chicago's Civic Federation and Bureau of Public Efficiency as well as president of the Chicago Railways Company. Other appointments included: member, Chicago Plan Commission; director of Chicago Title and Trust Company; executive committee member of the Chicago Association of Commerce; member of the Construction and Civic Development Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; trustee of the Edith Rockefeller McCormick Trust, and the Illinois Institute of Technology; president, Chicago Better Business Bureau; and president of the Chicago YMCA. Mr. Farr was also officer of a number of real estate corporations.
As president of the National Association of Real Estate Boards, he led its fight against urban blightpdf. As a president of the American Institute of Real Estate Appraisers, he was engaged actively in Chicago's first large scale experiment in neighborhood rehabilitation by cooperative action of property owners.
Source: Presidents of the National Association of REALTORS®, (Chicago: NAR, 1980).
*Deceased