480 pages
The Big Rich is a fabulous history of the original Texas oil giants. Cullen. Richardson. Murchinson. Hunt. Even Bass. It counts their origins, their rise, struggles, and legacy in a unique interwoven narrative. The result was, reading this book compelled me stop and look up stock quotes of small Permian-basin based oil companies on a periodic basis, thinking to myself about the possibilities. I mean, what Texan doesn’t dream of oil riches every now and again?
One of my favorite quotes:
The men who bought Texas Eastern saw their stock, bought for $150,000, leap in value to almost $10 million in less than a year. H.L. Hunt’s fields alone supplied a full quarter of the gas Texas Eastern brought to northeastern cities. Sid Richardson’s Winkler County fields became the foundation of El Paso Natural Gas’s supply; Richardson’s gas lit up much of Hollywood and the Sunset Strip.
