by The Big Rich: The Rise;Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes
McLean, Marrs
McLendon, Gordon
Mafia
Magnolia Oil Company
Mahfouz, Khalid bin
Marathon
margin calls
Marsh, Charles E.:
Johnson and
Richardson and
Marshall, George Preston
Martin, Spencer “Spinny,”
Meador, Lynn
Mecom, John
Mecom, John, Jr.
Mellon family
Mendel, Warner H.
Meredith, Don
Merrill Lynch
Mesa Petroleum
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company
Mexico, Gulf of
Midland, Tex.
Miller, Ann
Miller, M. M.
Mississippi, oil industry in
Mobil Oil
Monahans, Tex.
Moncrief, W. A. “Monty,”
Moss, Bill
Murchison, Anne Brandt
Murchison, Anne White
Murchison, Burke
Murchison, Clinton
Murchison, Clinton, Jr.
bankruptcy of
Dallas mansion of
death of
football and
hedonistic lifestyle of
illness of
Kirby conflict and
marriages of
Murchison Brothers and
religion and
Murchison, Clinton Williams
Boys Inc. and
business diversification of
Cain and
cattle trading of
childhood and youth of
Closuit and
Collier and
Elliott Roosevelt and
Fain and
Golding and
Hoover and
Hotel del Charro of
hot oil dealing of
Kirby and
last years and death of
marriages of
mass media and
Matagorda Island home of
natural gas industry and
New York Central and
oil lease trading of
politics and
prorationing and
ranch holdings of
Richardson and
Tyler pipeline of
wealth of
Murchison, Frank
Murchison, Jane Coleman
Murchison, John Dabney
art collecting of
death of
homes and travel of
Kirby conflict and
Murchison Brothers and
Murchison, John Dabney, Jr.
Murchison, John Weldon
Murchison, Louise Gannon “Lupe,”
Murchison, Robert
Murchison, Virginia Long
Murchison Brothers dissolution of
Murchison family
Muse, Vance
Nahas, Fred
Nahas, Naji Robert
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
National Football League (NFL)
AFL’s merger with
Native Americans
natural gas industry
federal regulation of
Johnson and
Murchison’s pioneering of
postwar expansion of
Nazis
Necci, Franco
Neiman Marcus
New Deal
New London, Tex., explosion (1937)
New Orleans, La.
New York Central Railroad
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)
Nix, Paul
Nixon, Richard M.
Hunt wiretapping case and
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
North Sea oil field
O’Brien, George Washington
O’Brien, Pat
Occidental Petroleum
O’Connor, Tom
O’Connor oil field
O’Daniel, W. Lee “Pappy,”
oil depletion allowance
Oilfield Supply Company
oil industry:
advertising and
Arab oil embargo and
crude price and supply and
decline in 1960s of
federal regulation of
founding of
golden age of
“hot oil” dealing in
Jazz Age and
lease trading and
McCarthy and
mass media and
Middle East oil and
navy as customer of
offshore drilling and
philanthropy and
politics and,
prorationing and
“roughnecks” in
Spindletop and
wildcatters (independents) and
windfall-profits tax and
World War II and
oil scouting, Oklahoma:
Cullen as cotton broker in
oil industry in
Olds, Leland
Optimum Systems
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
Oswald, Lee Harvey
Palmer, Philip I.
Panola Pipelines
Parade Oil
Parten, J. R.
Pearl Harbor attack (1941)
Pearson, Drew
Pennsylvania, oil industry in
Pennzoil
Penrod Drilling
Perot, H. Ross
Persian Gulf
Phillips Petroleum
Pickens, T. Boone
Pierce Junction oil field
pipelines
Placid Oil
Pointe a la Hache oil field
Porter, Jack
Poucher, Wayne
Pratt, Wallace
Preston, Carl Thomas
prorationing
Quintana Petroleum
Rabbs (Thompsons) Ridge oil field
racism
Radical Right and the Murder of John F. Kennedy, The (Livingstone)
radio
railroads
Rainwater, Richard
ranches, ranching
Rand, Ayn
Ranger oil field
Rayburn, Sam
Reagan, Ronald W.
refineries
Reluctant Empire (Fuermann)
Republican Party:
Eisenhower and
election of 1952 and
Texas conservatives and
Republic National Bank of Dallas
Richardson, John Isadore
Richardson, Sid
art collection of
Boys Inc. and
cattle trading of
childhood and youth of
Collier and
education of
Elliott Roosevelt and
Estes oil field and
final years and death of
Graham and
Keystone oil field and
lack of information on Marsh and
mass media and
Murchison and
natural gas industry and
New York Central deal and
oil lease trading of
oil scouting of
politics and
ranches of
St. Joseph’s Island home of wealth of
Robertson, Beth , Robertson, Corbin , Rockefeller family , Rockefeller Foundation, Roeser, Charles Roosevelt, Eleanor , Roosevelt, Elliott , Roosevelt, Franklin D.
Richardson and
Texas conservatives’ targeting of
World War II and
Roosevelt, Kermit
Roosevelt, Theodore
Rothermel, Paul HLH Products and
Rothschild family
Rozelle, Pete
Ruby, Jack
Rudolph, Paul
Russell, Richard
Ryan, Ray
Sarir oil field
Saudi Arabia
Scarborough Ranch
Schramm, Texas E. “Tex,�
��
Schwartz, Frederick C.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
Senate, U.S.:
election of 1960 and
McCarthy and
natural gas industry and
New York Central sale and
see also Congress, U.S.; House of Representatives, U.S.
Shell Oil
Shivers, Allan
Sid Richardson Foundation
silver market
Silver Profits in the Seventies (Smith)
Silver Thursday
Sinatra, Frank
Sinclair Oil Company
Slick, Thomas, Jr.
Smoot, Dan
Southern Committee to Uphold the Constitution (SCUC)
Southern Union Gas Company
soybeans
Spindletop (Big Hill) oil field,
Lucas No. 1 well at
Stagg, Tom
Standard Oil
Staubach, Roger
Steinberg, Saul
Sterling, Ross
Stevenson, Adlai E.
Stewart, Maco
Stewart, Maco, Jr.
Stone, Oliver
storage facilities
Strake, George
Strake, George, Jr.
sugar industry
Sun Oil
Super Bowl
Supreme Court, U.S.:
Cullen and
natural gas regulation and
prorationing issue and
Roosevelt and
Swiss Bank Corp.
Switzerland
Talmadge, Eugene
Tandy, Charles
television
Tessmer, Charles
Texas
agriculture of
antitrust laws of
Big Four families of
Big Rich class of
economic diversification of
Lone Star playboy as icon of
lumber industry in
McCarthy and
parochialism of
prorationing issue in
ranches and
recession of 1979-1982 and
size and variety of
Standard Oil and
Texas, University of
Texas Commerce Bank
Texas Company (Texaco)
Texas Construction Company (Tecon)
Texas Eastern
Texas Instruments
Texas Railroad Commission
Texas Rangers
Texas Regulars
Texas School Book Depository
Texas Stadium
Thompson, Robert
Thurmond, Strom
Tinsley oil field
Tolson, Clyde
Tom O’Connor Ranch
Tony Roma’s
Truman, Harry S.
Tydings, Millard
Tye, Frania, see Lee, Frania Tye
Tyler, Tex.
Ulrey, Lewis Valentine
United Nations (UN)
United States of America, gasoline supply and demand in
Van Buren, Ernestine Orrick
Volcker, Paul
Waggoner Ranch
Walker, Edwin
Walker, Stanley
Waltuch, Norton
Watson Associates
Wayne, John
West, “Big Jim,”
West, James Marion, Jr.
White, Theodore
wildcatters (independents)
Wilson, Clyde
Windsor, Edward, Duke of
Windsor, Wallis Warfield Simpson, Duchess of,
Winkler County oil fields
Wolfe, Jane
Women’s National Press Club
World War I
World War II
Wynne, Toddie Lee
Yale University
Yates oil field
Young, Robert
Zapata Petroleum
a
The site is located about one mile south of where the Houston Astrodome stands today.
b
The Murchison family pronounces the name “Murkison.”
c
Exactly how Richardson coaxed that much money out of a bank is unclear, but Richardson cited the two-hundred-thousand-dollar figure more than once in later life. Maybe he ran into a gullible loan officer. A more likely explanation is that he received help arranging the loan—a letter of recommendation, maybe even a loan guarantee—from the banker he knew best, John Murchison. If so, it wouldn’t be the last time he sought the Murchisons’ help in coming years.
d
Richardson drilled several of these first wells in partnership with an oilman named Eugene Kelsey.
e
Humble renamed Rabbs Ridge the “Thompsons” field, the name it is known by today.
f
Details of Richardson’s various loans and lawsuits are contained in records filed in the Winkler County Courthouse in Kermit.
g
What little is known of Richardson’s dealings with Charles Marsh can be found, in part, in various corporate files Marsh left after his death in 1966, and which are now deposited at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin.
h
In his 1989 biography of John Connally, The Lone Star, author James Reston Jr. gave another version of the Richardson-Marsh split. Reston quotes an unidentified “observer” of the deal who asserted that Richardson and Marsh had an agreement in which either partner could buy out the other in the event the second partner was unable to fulfill his financial responsibilities. According to this account, Richardson demanded $3.7 million from Marsh to develop leases around the Keystone Field; when Marsh couldn’t produce the cash, Richardson forced him to sell out. “When Sid got the chance,” the observer is quoted saying, “he screwed the guy who got him into business.”
The Reston account makes no mention of Marsh’s tax problems. Moreover, as Marsh’s private papers show, Richardson and Marsh continued an amiable correspondence for years afterward. If Richardson really did “screw” Charles Marsh, and there’s no documentation to support this assertion, Marsh apparently held no grudge. In later years Marsh regained his solvency and purchased a string of small eastern newspapers. He died in 1964.
i
The home is today the Lakewood Country Club.
j
Strake kept Glen Eyrie until 1951, when it was sold to the Navigators, a religious group then affiliated with the evangelist Billy Graham. The group uses the property as a summer camp and retreat to this day.
k
The bond between Kirby and Armstrong was strong. When Armstrong went bankrupt in 1923, it was Kirby who stepped in with nine hundred thousand dollars to buy his various companies and return them to Armstrong’s supervision. After Kirby’s bankruptcy, Armstrong repaid the favor by buying Kirby’s East Texas ranch and returning it to Kirby. Late in life, Armstrong would characterize Kirby as “the greatest man I have ever known.”
l
After their father’s death, West’s two sons eventually sold the Austin radio station to a freshly minted Austin-area congressman named Lyndon Johnson, for whom it became the basis of a substantial personal fortune.
m
Dies’s papers indicate he corresponded regularly with Kirby and Stewart; Stewart, in fact, wrote Dies a letter from his deathbed at the Mayo Clinic.
n
According to his IRS testimony, Elliott thought so highly of Richardson that he named him godfather of one of his children. He doesn’t say which one. In an interview with the author, Elliott’s son, Tony Roosevelt, says he believes the story is true, though he, too, isn’t sure which child was involved.
†In a foreword he wrote for a 1993 history of Aransas County, Texas, where St. Joseph’s Island is located, Perry Bass dated this incident to the afternoon of December 7, 1941. But in his 1945 testimony to the IRS, Richardson put the call the following Wednesday.
encounter that would shape his life in later years. His attorney, William Kittrell,
spied an army general he had met arranging for soldiers to appear at the state fair. His name was Dwight Eisenhower, and he couldn’t find a seat on the crowded train. Kittrell invited Eisenhower to sit in Richardson’s drawing room. The three men ended up talking most of the way to Washington. “I thought he was a pretty good hand,” Richardson told the Washington Post in 1954. “The funny thing was, I didn’t pay any attention to the name. Later on, Bill [Kittrell] said to me, ‘Remember that fellow that shared your drawing room? He’s the fellow that’s in command over there in Europe.’ ”
o
Not long after, Murchison divested the last of his Southern Union stock, his last link to the company.
p
To be fair, oil had been associated with Texas in the public mind since Spindletop. Several novels and minor films had been issued about Texas oilmen in the 1920s. As late as 1940, the movie Boomtown, starring Clark Gable as a wheeler-dealer Texan, achieved wide notice. Tellingly, Boomtown was set during the Ranger-Breckinridge booms of the early 1920s. Hollywood, like the rest of America, had yet to learn of the state’s new wealth.
q
Interestingly, several of McCarthy’s high school and college transcripts list his date of birth as December 25, 1906, suggesting he may have lied about his age as he became older.
r
Richardson remained a quiet supporter of Graham’s the rest of his life, at one point bankrolling a white-tie dinner at London’s Claridge’s hotel in which Graham preached the gospel to almost two hundred members of the British social elite.
s
Porter was already a leader among Texas independents, having spearheaded, along with Glenn McCarthy, their opposition to the Anglo-American treaty in 1944. Porter and McCarthy went on to cofound one of Texas Oil’s largest lobbying arms, the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association.
t
Cullen wasn’t so wild about Kravchenko’s second book, I Chose Justice, which detailed his fight against a libel suit filed against him by communists in Paris. “The story of the libel suit is fine,” he wrote a Scribner’s editor who mailed him galley proofs, “but I think the man is a socialist.”
u
A Senate subcommittee later found that Murchison’s money, along with five thousand dollars contributed by Roy Cullen’s partner Jack Porter, were part of a sum not reported to the “appropriate authorities.” Instead the money had been used to help pay for a tabloid newspaper distributed throughout Maryland that carried a fake photograph of Senator Tydings posing with the American Communist leader, Earl Browder. Tydings was defeated.
v
Richardson’s Old Friend says Crawford chased Richardson so fervently that she actually flew to Fort Worth unannounced. Richardson refused to see her, and the actress ended up spending an awkward evening with Perry Bass’s family. “Sid so hated snobs,” the Old Friend said. “She was the kind of person he hated most.”
