Everyone in Dallas—and well beyond its city limits—has heard about the immense fortune of oil tycoon Haroldson Lafayette “H. L.” Hunt. By securing his family’s claim to most of the East Texas Oil Field, he handed several generations of Hunts a lifetime pass to wealth and comfort. That windfall didn’t slow him down: over the years he funneled money into agriculture, media, food production, and a string of other enterprises. More on dallaska.
Harold Hunt’s Questionable Reputation
Hunt’s rise was anything but straight-laced. Born in 1889 into a large Illinois farm family, he never attended grade school or high school. Instead, he educated himself and quickly gained a reputation for a razor-sharp command of mathematics.
His passion for gambling was no secret. When a flood ruined his first venture—a cotton plantation—he took his last $100 to a poker table and turned it into $100,000. With those winnings he snapped up several oil leases in Arkansas, setting the stage for his empire.
Locals still whisper that, in the 1950s, Hunt quietly bankrolled a sex business and ran a private bookmaking operation on horse races and card games out of his Dallas office.
One of America’s Richest Men
Whatever the rumors, the numbers spoke louder. In 1957 Forbes pegged Hunt’s fortune at $400 million to $700 million. His big break had come in 1936, when he paid just $30,000 for land from an oil speculator and founded Hunt Oil, headquartered in Dallas. The company still pumps crude in the United States, Canada, and Yemen.
Profits from Hunt Oil let him branch into publishing, pecan farming, health-food production, and cosmetics. Media fascinated him most: he wrote newspaper columns and hosted radio segments to spotlight his causes and deals.
Hunt died in Dallas in 1987. At the time, his net worth was estimated at nearly $3 billion, making him one of the richest people on the planet.
A Carefree Life for the Tycoon’s Heirs
The next generations kept the oil business humming but had plenty of capital—and curiosity—to explore new arenas.
In 1959 Hunt’s son Lamar Hunt launched the up-start American Football League and a team called the Dallas Texans. Four years later his other franchise, the Dallas Cowboys, relocated to Kansas City and became the Kansas City Chiefs. Neither of Lamar’s two wives nor his children ever missed a Super Bowl, and as he grew older he divided team ownership equally among his four kids. Day-to-day control fell to his son Clark Hunt.
Clark has spent his career polishing the franchises his grandfather once envisioned. He likens football to a personal faith and famously drew superstar singer Taylor Swift into the Chiefs’ fan base.