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This true story of greed, corruption, and scandal follows one of the most famous oil families in Texas. Moncrief reveals how petty office politics in his family's business led to a frame-up, explores the effects from the subsequent IRS raid, and details the years-long trial that ended with the Moncrief family absolved of all charges.
Seeking treasure—finding pleasure Penniless wildcatter Miguel Heydt has come seeking his fortune—oil—on Suntop land. But the cranky old owner of the Colorado ranch will tolerate no mineral exploration on his spread, so Miguel hires on with the ranch’s haying crew and explores for oil at night. Until a secret contract the rancher proposes is too tempting for Miguel to resist. In exchange for unlimited drilling rights, he’s to marry the old man’s daughter, Risa, and produce the male heir Ben craves. Miguel woos, wins, beds and then weds Risa—falls in love with her, too. But minutes after the wedding, she finds out what he did and she flees. Eleven years later, Risa and Miguel meet at Suntop once more, and the fire between them is still there. But how can she trust him again? A man who’d marry her for drilling rights…a man who’d trade his own son for an oil well?
In the 1970s and 1980s the Texas wildcatter was a recognizable figure in popular culture. Since then, the wildcatter's role is less celebrated but still important, as shown in the new introduction to this edition of a book originally published in 1984 by Texas Monthly Press. Drawing heavily on oral histories, this book tells the story of the West Texas independents as a group, looking at their business strategies in the context of their national, regional, and local conditions. The focus is on the Permian Basin and southeastern New Mexico over the sixty-year period in which the region rose to prominence on the American oil scene, producing about one-fifth of the nation's output. It is a story that covers vast technological change, governmental regulation, and economic fluctuation with profound implications for the oil and gas community. The new introduction brings the story up-to-date by addressing not only the subsequent careers of the wildcatters described in the book but also the role of independents in the current economy. ROGER M. OLIEN, who holds a Ph.D. from Brown University, lives in Austin and is a member of the TSHA Speakers Bureau.DIANA DAVIDS HINTON holds the J. Conrad Dunagan Chair in regional and business history at the University of Texas-Permian Basin. Her Ph.D. is from Yale University.
As long as there is money to be made, there will be Wildcatters. Throughout human history wildcatters, the first great explorers and prospectors to lay claim to newly discovered lands, have marched to the beat of a different drummer-motivated by a deep yearning to be the first to walk on uncharted land and benefit from treasures yet to be discovered. In the future, wildcatters in space will travel to exoplanets, located in The Big Nothing, to search for new chemicals which, when transformed into pharmaceuticals, will bring untold wealth and fame to the individuals and corporations that stake their claim for exclusive exploitation rights. Such is the quest of the crew of the independent starship Golden Hind, whose mission is to travel a year and a half to "Cacafuego", beat the larger corporations to the exoplanet's resources, and strike it rich for themselves. But will a yellow warning flag, planted above the planet, stop them? Or will the Golden Hind's prospector foray to the planet's surface, possibly to never return alive?
The Wildcatters: An Informal History of Oil-Hunting in America takes a close look at the early histories of the chief oil fields of the United States, with special emphasis on the fields of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. The author, himself the son of a successful oilman from Blackford County, Indiana, describes how oilmen without much (if any) knowledge of geology migrated westward from Pennsylvania and West Virginia into Ohio, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and even into California, and how these “wildcatters”—a term for an individual who drills wildcat wells, which are exploration oil wells drilled in areas not known to be oil fields—would often drill holes that would prove to be successful and bring in new fields. Tait explores the very first serious attempt in the United States to develop and oil industry, which was in 1859 in Titusville, Pennsylvania, and how the great Appalachian oil field was developed, with exploration rapidly carried into West Virginia, and continued into Ohio and Indiana. A well-drilling in Findlay, Ohio in 1884 discovered gas, resulting in the opening of the great Lima-Indiana oil field, and the great interior basin fields in Illinois were developed around 1937, largely through the use of geophysics. Samuel W. Tait’s book provides an impressive historical contribution to the history to oil discovery east of the Mississippi River.
A legend among oilmen, Tom Slick was an independent operator in the truest sense. His office was his buggy during his early days of wildcatting the Mid-Continent oil field around 1910. And even after great success brought him to posher surroundings in an Oklahoma City office suite, his style remained hands-on. His impromptu deals were often brokered on street corners and over the telephone in his typical laconic style. Well into the 1920s he was the last of a breed who had no stock holders or board members to answer to, and instead "worked out of his hip pocket." Slick's extraordinary rise paralleled that of the modern petroleum industry. He began his career in the oil fields of western Pennsylvania, the birthplace of the American oil business. Before 1910, he headed west, traveling with his father and brother to the fields of Kansas to work as contract drillers. Slick met with failure in these early years, as he moved on to Oklahoma in an attempt to locate oil. In 1912 he received the financial backing to drill one more well, which turned out to be the discovery well for the vast Cushing Field. This amazing success was followed by more discoveries of fields - a frenzy of acquiring, drilling, then selling that in 1929 culminated with Slick's sale of his Oklahoma holdings in the Prairie Oil and Gas Company - up until that time, the largest sale of oil properties by an individual. In this first biography of Tom Slick, Ray Miles fleshes out the man who, despite his legendary drive - and the high-profile nature of the oil business - was exceedingly private and withdrawn. Miles relies on newspaper accounts, court and business records, correspondence, and personal interviews with family, friends, and associates to render a portrait of one of the most successful and colorful, yet elusive, businessmen of his day.
This is a reprint of a previously published book. It profiles three generations of oil tycoons based in Texas.
Story of Michel Halbouty in Texas Oil Fields.
The native son of a distinguished West Texas family and a 1954 graduate of Texas A&M whose career and personal pursuits have ranged from farmer to insurance salesman to wildcatter, pipeline entrepreneur, rancher, banker, real estate mogul, big game hunter, conservationist, philanthropist, front-running gubernatorial candidate, and oil tycoon, Clayton W. Williams Jr. is by all measures one of a kind. He has repeatedly been on the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, yet more than once Claytie has also been on the verge of bankruptcy. This authorized biography captures the dimensions of his fascinating life: his determined work ethic and honesty; his passionate interests and rough-hewn style; his devotion to wife and constant companion Modesta and family; his all-in wildcatter bets and integrity-above-all payoff of debts; his patented gaffes in the "wildest, woolliest Texas governor's race ever" and their spotlighted consequences for the state and nation; and running through it all, both unrestrained celebrations and knees-on-the-ground repentance. His many notable successes, his most admirable traits, as well as his most outrageous flaws are all portrayed in this book, often in Claytie's own words or in the extensive comments, revealing anecdotes, and first-person accounts of others, supplemented by family and business documents, as well as contemporary journalistic records. This book tells it all, revealing one distinctive maverick who has left his boot prints all across Texas for 75 years.
“Full of schadenfreude and speculation—and solid, timely history too.” —Kirkus Reviews “This is a portrait of capitalism as white-knuckle risk taking, yielding fruitful discoveries for the fathers, but only sterile speculation for the sons—a story that resonates with today's economic upheaval.” —Publishers Weekly “What's not to enjoy about a book full of monstrous egos, unimaginable sums of money, and the punishment of greed and shortsightedness?” —The Economist Phenomenal reviews and sales greeted the hardcover publication of The Big Rich, New York Times bestselling author Bryan Burrough's spellbinding chronicle of Texas oil. Weaving together the multigenerational sagas of the industry's four wealthiest families, Burrough brings to life the men known in their day as the Big Four: Roy Cullen, H. L. Hunt, Clint Murchison, and Sid Richardson, all swaggering Texas oil tycoons who owned sprawling ranches and mingled with presidents and Hollywood stars. Seamlessly charting their collective rise and fall, The Big Rich is a hugely entertaining account that only a writer with Burrough's abilities-and Texas upbringing-could have written.