 In 1966, the firm merged with Elder & Co., based in Chattanooga, Tennessee and then expanded for the first time to the West Coast with an office in La Jolla, California in 1973.The firm faced another major economic crisis during the 1973–1974 stock market crash, experiencing its first loss since the Great Depression in 1974.During the 1970s, consolidation was rampant among many longstanding Wall Street firms and in 1979 J.C. Bradford chose a merger with Almstead Bros., based in Kentucky and then a year later with Frost, Johnson, Reed and Smith, based in South Carolina.