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Monday, December 21, 2015
The Texas Minute: H.L. Hunt, pt II entire war. By war's end, Hunt was also supplying about 85% of the natural gas used in the eastern United States. In 1948, he was named the richest man in the world by the media, with a fortune estimated at $263 million (about $2.6 billion in 2015 dollars). But he was not content. He continued nurturing his oil business and soon expanded into consumer products, Dr. Ken Bridges selling such items as cosmetics, H. L. Hunt had rose from a small vitamins, and health food through farm in Illinois to making a a spinoff company called HLH fortune in the South Arkansas oil Products. By the late 1950s, boom of the 1920s. His ventures journalists estimated his fortune at in Texas would propel the more than $500 million (or about eccentric millionaire to become $4.2 billion in 2015 dollars). one of the richest men in the world. In 1955, his first wife, Lyda Bunker Hunt, died. Two years Hunt made Tyler the headquarters later, Hunt married Ruth Ray, who for Hunt Oil in 1936 as the East had been involved in an affair with Texas Oil Fields boomed, using him for years and already had four his fortune and connections made children with him. In spite of this in Arkansas oil to finance it. He scandalous relationship, H. L. soon transferred his company to Hunt became a prominent member Dallas. In 1938, he moved to the and contributor to First Baptist White Rock Lake area of Dallas, Church in Dallas. paying $69,000 for a spread of ten acres and a home that was He became increasingly involved expanded into a Dallas landmark. in conservative political causes as When the newest owners put the he grew older. Throughout the home on the market in 2013, the 1950s, he bankrolled a estate was priced at $24 million. conservative radio program called Here, he fed deer on the property, Facts Forum, whose commentators raised his family, traveled the condemned the New Deal and world, and carefully tended his Jews while supporting the antiempire. communist activities of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who was later During World War II, he supplied disgraced for those same antics. the government with oil needed In the 1960 election, he openly for victory. As the largest condemned John F. Kennedy for producer in the country by the his Roman Catholic faith and for 1940s, his company sold most of what Hunt saw as weak antithe oil used by the Allies during communist credentials. the war. In fact, he personally sold more oil to the U. S. and the Hunt's prominence in Dallas and Allies than all of Germany in conservative causes coupled produced on its own during the with his loud criticisms of
Kennedy led some conspiracy theorists openly attempt to link Hunt to Kennedy's assassination in 1963. No serious evidence of such a link ever emerged, but the FBI provided bodyguards for Hunt in the chaotic aftermath of Kennedy's death. Hunt began writing extensively in the 1960s, writing newspaper and magazine columns condemning communism and commenting on the oil business. He wrote several books, including Why Not Speak? (1964) and Hunt for Truth (1965). In 1967, he wrote a novel titled Alpaca in which he described his ideal world. The unequal system he envisioned had young adults receiving one vote, elderly citizens receiving two votes, and the wealthiest having four votes. Hunt died quietly in Dallas in November 1974. In the years after his death, his life was the subject of numerous books as well as endless speculation in Dallas social circles. Dr. Bridges is a Texas native, writer, and history professor. He can be reached at drkenbridges@gmail.com.
H.L. Hunt
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