Haroldson Lafayette Hunt (1889-1974)

    H. L. Hunt, oil tycoon, the youngest of eight children of Haroldson Lafayette and Ella Rose (Myers) Hunt, was born in Carson Township, Fayette County, Illinois, on February 17, 1889. He was educated at home. In 1905 he traveled through Colorado, California, and Texas. By 1912 he had settled in Arkansas, where he ran a cotton plantation that was flooded out by 1917. In 1921 he joined the oil boom in El Dorado, Arkansas, where he became a lease broker and promoted his first well, Hunt-Pickering No. 1. He claimed to have attained a "fortune of $600,000" by 1925, the year he bought a whole block in El Dorado and built a three-story house for his family. His El Dorado investments and a venture called Smackover taught Hunt lessons about the cost of wasteful practices and excessive drilling. Both fields were depleted rapidly. He also lost money on the Florida land boom, and by the time he got interested in the East Texas oilfield in 1930, he seems to have been broke again. Hunt is in the famous photograph that immortalizes the drill test for Daisy Bradford No. 3 and the opening of the East Texas oilfield. On November 26, 1930, he made a deal with Columbus M. "Dad" Joiner that made him owner of the well and all Joiner's surrounding leases. Hunt used $30,000 that belonged to P. G. Lake, a clothier from El Dorado, and planned to make subsequent payments from revenue to buy out Joiner. He knew Joiner was beset by problems of oversold interests in the well. By December 1, 1930, Hunt had his own pipeline, the Panola Pipe Line, to run oil from the East Texas field.

    By 1932 the Hunt Production Company had 900 wells in East Texas. In 1935 H. L. Hunt, Incorporated, was superseded by Placid Oil Company, and the shares were divided into trusts for Hunt's six children. In late 1936 Hunt acquired the Excelsior Refining Company in Rusk County and changed the name to Parade Refining Company. It was residue gas from this company's lines that caused the New London Explosion on March 18, 1937. Most of the people involved in that catastrophe were employees of H. L. Hunt. In 1937 or 1938 the family moved to Dallas. On April 5, 1948, Fortune printed a story on Hunt that labeled him the richest man in the United States. It estimated the value of his oil properties at $263 million and the daily production of crude from his wells at 65,000 barrels. On November 26, 1914, Hunt married Lyda Bunker in Arkansas. They had six children. On November 11, 1975, after H. L. Hunt had died, Mrs. Frania Tye Lee filed a civil complaint against Hunt in which she revealed the history of their relationship. They had married in 1925 and lived together in Shreveport until 1930, when they moved to Dallas. In May 1934 "Franny" had discovered Hunt's other marriage. Hunt apparently shipped her off to New York and in 1941 provided trusts for each of the four children. A friend of his, John Lee, married her and gave his name to the children. Lyda Bunker Hunt died in 1955. In November 1957 Hunt married Ruth Ray and adopted her four children, who had been born between 1943 and 1950. Ruth Hunt admitted in an interview that H. L. Hunt had, in fact, been their real father. H. L. and Ruth Hunt became Baptists. In his later life Hunt promoted "constructive" politics in two radio shows, Facts Forum and Life Line, which he supported from 1951 to 1963. In 1952, Facts Forum endorsed Senator Joseph McCarthy. In 1960 Hunt published a romantic utopian novel, Alpaca, and in 1968 he began to process aloe vera cosmetics. He died on November 29, 1974. Source

Monument Garden
Sparkman Hillcrest Memorial Park
Dallas

COORDINATES

32° 52.054, -096° 46.729

John Kirby Allen (1810-1838)

    John Kirby Allen, founder of Houston, legislator, and backer of the Texas Revolution, fourth son of Roland and Sarah (Chapman) Allen, was born at Orrville, near Syracuse, New York, in 1810. He took his first job - that of callboy in a hotel at Orrville - when he was seven. Three years later he became a clerk in a store. At sixteen he went into partnership with a young friend named Kittredge in a hat store at Chittenango, New York, where his brother, Augustus C. Allen, was professor of mathematics until 1827. John Allen sold his interest in the hat store and followed his brother to New York City, where they were stockholders in H. and H. Canfield Company until 1832, when they moved to Texas. They settled in Nacogdoches around 1833 and engaged in land speculation.

    At the beginning of the Texas Revolution the Allen brothers did not join the armed forces but rendered more valuable, and equally dangerous, service in other ways. At their own expense they fitted out the Brutus for the purpose of protecting the Texas coast and for assisting troops and supplies from the United States to land safely in Texas. When some of the members of the Texas provisional government objected to the activities of privateers under letters of marque, the Allens, in January 1836, sold the Brutus to the Texas Navy at cost. The brothers also served on committees to raise loans on Texas lands and became receivers and dispensers of supplies and funds without charge to the republic. In spite of these services there was considerable gossip and censure concerning the Allens because they were not in the armed services.

    In August 1836 the Allen brothers purchased more than 6,600 acres of land around Buffalo Bayou and founded the city of Houston. In September 1836 John Allen was elected a representative from Nacogdoches to the Texas Congress. He served as congressman from Nacogdoches and was on the president's staff with the rank of major. In partnership with James Pinckney Henderson he operated a shipping business. Allen was never married. He contracted a “bilious fever” (possibly yellow fever or malaria) and died at his brother’s home in Houston on August 15, 1838. He was buried in Founders Memorial Cemetery, Houston. A Centennial marker was erected in his honor in 1936, and a Texas Historical Marker was erected in 1968. Allen Parkway in Houston is named for Allen and his family. Source


Founders Memorial Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 45.468, -095° 22.760

Cyrus Longworth Lundell (1907-1994)

    Cyrus L. Lundell, botanist and archaeologist, was born November 5, 1907 in Austin, Texas and later studied at Southern Methodist University. In 1928 he was appointed as assistant physiologist at the Tropical Plant Research Foundation in Washington, D.C. and sent to British Honduras (now Belize) to undertake tapping experiments on the sapodilla tree - the source of chicle - for the chewing gum industry. In the autumn of 1931, while in an uncharted area of Campeche, he discovered the remains of a lost Mayan city, which he named Calakmul, "the city of two adjacent mounds". This was only the first of sixteen ancient cities and other Mayan sites that he discovered. 

    From 1933 to 1944, he continued his research into Mayan civilization while leading botanical expeditions to Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize for the Carnegie Institution and the University of Michigan. With his wife, Amelia, he discovered some 450 new plant species in Guatemala, including the ancestors of squash, cacao, pinto beans, and other crop plants. In total he discovered and named over 2,000 species, primarily from Texas. In 1944 he began a crusade to save the Texas blacklands, which are similar to those of the Maya region, by establishing the Institute of Technology and Plant Industry (now the Botanical Research Institute of Texas) at Southern Methodist University. Lundell was also the founder of the botanical journal Wrightia, author of the Flora of Texas and over 200 published articles. He was a member of the Agricultural Board, the National Academy of Science, and the National Research Council. In 1981 he was awarded the Order of Quetzal by the Guatemalan government for his contributions to botany, agriculture, and Mayan archaeology. He died on March 28, 1994 and buried in Dallas.

Monument Garden
Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park
Dallas

COORDINATES

32° 52.081, -096° 46.704

 

Isaac L. Jaques (?-1836)

    Isaac L. Jaques, his wife and two daughters came to Texas via New York in October, 1835 and settled near Lynchburg. A few months later, on February 22, he volunteered to serve in Captain Duncan's Company for two weeks, before being transferred to Captain Thomas A. McIntire's Company on March 8. He fought at San Jacinto, but passed away several months later at his home in Lynchburg on August 8, 1836.


San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site
La Porte

COORDINATES

29° 45.241, -095° 05.351