Willis attended
Bingham Military School in
Asheville, North Carolina, and later moved to
Knoxville, Tennessee, where he became involved with a patent medicine firm. Willis began to sell and promote the medicines. In 1913 he founded International Proprietaries, Inc., and made a fortune selling a tonic called Tanlac. Although chemists at the time branded it
quackery, as it was simply fortified wine with herbs and a laxative, the tonic sold very well nevertheless. Willis sold his firm in 1922 but then made another fortune with
Zonite, an antiseptic preparation based on
Dakin's solution, widely used in
World War I. In 1922, as head of its finance committee, Willis led a $2 million fundraising drive for
Georgia Tech. In 1924, he purchased the town of Ingleside, Georgia, just east of
Decatur and there built the new planned community of
Avondale Estates, Georgia. The distinctive
Tudor Revival architecture of the town was inspired by a recent trip that he and his wife had taken to
Stratford-upon-Avon,
England. Willis sought input from internationally known city planners; Avondale Estates was the first documented planned city in the
Southeastern United States. In 1928 Willis introduced a new medicine, Sargon, and became president of the
Stone Mountain Confederate Monumental Association. ==References==