How Come Texans.....Part Two in a Series

Spindletop, 1901.  Within a few years, America, because of Texas, was the largest oil-producing country in the world.

      In late 1900 and early 1901, an oil man named Anthony F. Lucas drilled a well on Spindletop Hill in Beaumont, Texas.  On January 10, 1901, at 1139 feet, the well blew in and sent a column of oil 150 feet into the air.  It took nine days to cap the flow, and the well produced over 100,000 barrels of oil per day.  Within a year there were over 200 similar wells in Beaumont and both Texaco and Gulf Oil had been formed to develop the Spindletop Field.  The East Texas Oil Fields followed within a few years, and later, vast quantities of oil were discovered in West Texas.

     Texas was an agrarian state.   Some rich merchants, a few astute businessmen, and a smattering of professional people---doctors, lawyers, and the like, prospered in the state, but most people were farmers or ranchers, living off, and on, the land.  My grandparents were typical.  With thirteen children, they scratched out a living on eighty acres in the backwoods of East Texas. At Christmas time, the little ones got penny candy, an orange, an apple and maybe half-dozen pecans.  My ancestors did not strike oil, but many folks in similar circumstances did.

     Consider the case of Granddad’s forty-year old neighbor who had a wife and eight children.  For this exercise, we’ll just call him “Tex.” He farmed eighty acres of rocky Texas soil with a Georgia Stock plow and two mules.  If Tex worked hard and it rained, he might net five hundred dollars in a good year.   If it did not rain, no matter how hard he worked, he was down at the local bank with his hat in his hands.  And it did not rain a lot.

     One day, some big city dudes came by and offered to lease Tex’s land for five dollars an acre and allow him keep a full one-eighth of whatever oil they found.  He nervously signed, mainly because of the lease payment. Tex had never seen four hundred dollars in one place at one time.  The dudes hit a gusher, followed quickly by several more.

     Oil, at the time, was worth almost a dollar a barrel, so, within six months, ole Tex was making $8000.00 a day, seven days a week, thirty days a month, three hundred sixty five days a year.  His wife got her dream home and Tex even put a shiny new washing machine on the front porch.  His kids all got new sports cars---foreign jobs. That local bank asked him to be on the board of directors.  Tex went to Neiman-Marcus in Dallas and bought three hundred sixty five pairs of socks.  He had promised himself, if he ever got rich, he would wear a brand new pair of socks every day.  To Tex, that was the ultimate luxury.

     By the time Tex was forty-two, he bought an airplane and learned to fly.  He liked it so much, he bought a bigger airplane.  Tex called his wife “Mama” and took her to New York City to see Broadway shows.  He drank Jack Daniels whiskey and smoked Cuban cigars.  He wore alligator boots and Stetson hats and talked long and loud.  In fancy restaurants, he ordered $100 bottles of champagne and told the waiter to keep them coming.  What’s the good of being rich if you can’t show off?

      This windfall didn’t just happen that one time. Over a fifty year period, it happened thousands of times, to Texans from all walks of life in all sorts of financial situations.  Each handled the event in their own way, most without ostentation, but many reacted exactly like Tex.  The trickle-down effects of the oil money boosted the economy of the whole state and everyone shared to some extent in the overall prosperity.

     Tex always knew, in his heart of hearts, that he didn’t deserve all that money, but he was not about to give it back.  He continued to live large, but the wells slowly began to dry up.  One day, he discovered that he owed more than he could possibly repay, and his legal team advised him to declare bankruptcy.  He told everyone who would listen, “Them stupid, silly, ignorant damn bankers loaned me more money than I could pay back.”

     Tex, and hundreds of people like him, travelled all over the world spreading big tips, cigar ashes, and whiskey bottles as self-appointed good-will ambassadors for the State of Texas.  They created the stereotypical image of a loud, obnoxious Texan that permeates popular literature, media, and consciousness.  They also did something much more important for their state.

       These Oil Men demonstrated to a bunch of hungry young Texans that anything is possible.  They built a fire-in-the-belly ambition into several generations of farm kids growing up in near poverty.  Guys like Tex became role models.  They showed us that there is always a way out and we don’t have to accept our fate as so many of our ancestors did.  We can do better.  We can amount to something.  We don’t have to hang our heads.   We can stand up on our hind legs and look any man in the eye.

       Tex, and others like him, gave us ambition, optimism, and attitude.  If we don’t strike oil, there are lots of other ways to succeed.  All we need to do is choose a path and work like hell.  After all, this is still Texas.

     That about covers the loud and obnoxious segment of our population…in the next episode we will explore the universal and unrelenting pride in Texas…..and all things Texan……stay tuned.