Columbus minority business ‘giant’ Lewis Smoot Sr. mourned after passing

Lewis R. Smoot Sr., a “giant” in the Columbus business and minority communities, has died at age 90. Smoot built his father’s masonry company, Smoot Construction, into one of the largest minority-owned firms in the state while serving for decades as a mentor and leader in the city’s Black community. He died on Saturday. “He was a gentle giant — ethical, principled, hard-working,” said Columbus attorney and civic leader Larry James. “This is a big loss in a long line of giants in the Black community and Black leadership.” Smoot was 13 when he started hauling water on jobsites for Smoot Construction, the masonry company founded by his father, Sherman R. Smoot, in Charleston, West Virginia. After graduating with a degree in construction management at Michigan State University and serving two years in the U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers, Smoot joined his father’s firm in 1958, two years after his father relocated to Columbus. “I always planned to be in the family business,” Smoot told The Dispatch in a 1996 profile. “My father made sure it was a firm of reputation, ethics, quality and integrity.” By the 1970s, Smoot shifted the company’s focus from masonry to general contracting, and in...