John Scruggs Brown earned the bachelor of arts degree from UT in 1877 and was a member of Chi Delta. He was the son of an affluent UT trustee, and Brown became an owner of McCorkle & Brown, which dealt in hardware, seeds, fertilizer, and implements. Brown, who grew up as a neighbor of the Weston Fultons, invested $15,000 in the venture of the UT faculty member and alumnus to produce a heat control device. In 1926 he sold his interest in the business to Reynolds Metal Company for just under $2.4 million. All of his business ventures seemed to thrive and prosper.
His estate provided the $1.3 million to fund the building of the first UT University Center as a memorial to his wife, Carolyn Powell Rumbough Brown (Carolyn P. Brown).