Jacob Lott Ludlow was born in Spring Lake, New Jersey on December 20, 1862. Ludlow was a civil engineer who relocated to Winston-Salem (Forsyth County) in 1886. He held a variety of positions over the course of his lengthy career, including president of the Winston-Salem board of trade (1910-1918), supervising engineer during the construction of military camps during World War I, chief sanitation engineer for the U.S. Shipping Board's southeast region (World War I), chief engineer of the North Carolina National Guard during the administrations of governors Robert B. Glenn and William W. Kitchin, and as consulting engineer for the State Board of Health. He died in Winston-Salem on August 18, 1930.