1930's Business and the Economy | Hunt, Haroldson Lafayette, Jr. 1889-1974

OIL TYCOON

The Richest Man in America.

By 1942 H. L. Hunt was the richest man In the United States, earning roughly a million dollars per week for the oil produced by his east Texas wells. Professional gambler, bigamist, wildcatter, right-wing activist, and health-food fanatic, Hunt took chances, won big, and reveled in his accomplishments. From the 1930s, when he first surfaced as a known national figure, to the end of his life, he embellished his own history with exaggerated stories of his adventures, He was a self-made man who created his own reputation.

Background.

Son of a southern farmer and Confederate veteran who moved north during Reconstruction, Hunt was born near Vandalia, Illinois, on 17 February 1889. His father was somewhat prosperous, accounting for his success by embracing a militant social Darwinian philosophy that asserted his genetic superiority to the common man. He passed...