Haroldson Hunt

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Haroldson Hunt

Haroldson Lafayette Hunt Jr. (Born February 17, 1889 in Illinois , † November 29, 1974 in Dallas ) was an American oil billionaire.

Career

Haroldson Lafayette Hunt was born on February 17, 1889 as the youngest of the eight children of the farmer Haroldson Lafayette Hunt (Sr.) (1843–1911) and his wife Ella Rose (née Myers) (1848–1915) near Vandalia , Born in Fayette County , Illinois . His seven siblings were: Robert (1873–1950), Florence (1875–1961), Rose (1877–?), James Garfield (1879–?), Sherman (1881–1956), Henrietta / Nettie (1884–?) And Leonard L. (1886-1910).

Hunt left his family at the age of 16 and hitchhiked through the American West, initially working as a casual laborer on farms, as a cowboy and as a lumberjack. He later made a name for himself as a poker player ( Arizona Slim ). When his father died in 1911, he left Hunt (Jr.) approx. $ 6,000. H. bought (1912) with inheritance and poker winnings a cotton plantation near Lake Village , Chicot County , in the southeast of Arkansas , with the fertile soils of the so-called Arkansas Delta in the so-called Cotton Belt . However, the plantation was ruined in the first year by floods and a caterpillar infestation and the then 23-year-old was initially broke. By winning at the poker table, however, he managed to overcome the severe financial setback, and the beginning of the First World War, which caused the prices for cotton and cotton plantations to rise sharply - the armies needed cotton for uniforms, bandages, etc. - left the boy's business Farmers are thriving. With the income from several good harvests and loans, Hunt got into the real estate trade and futures trading in cotton. Pumping, buying, selling again at a higher price: that brought quick wealth. When the prices for cotton collapsed again after the end of the First World War, the cotton and real estate dealer speculated again so thoroughly that he ended up with approx. $ 200,000 in debt. After this second bankruptcy in the cotton business, the now 32-year-old was drawn to the business in which by far the most money could be made with enough hardship, daring and luck: the oil business.

At a poker game in Texas, he won an oil field that turned out to be extremely profitable. Eventually he became the first oil billionaire in history and was at times considered the richest American.

Due to his machinations and complicated family relationships, the Hunts family is considered one of the role models for the television series Dallas .

Political commitment

The conservative southerner Hunt belonged to the religious right and feared a communist uprising in the 1950s. Therefore, he founded the Facts Forum , the political radio and television programs with appropriate propaganda produced to the campaign of Senator Joseph McCarthy to support. Hunt financed right-wing conservative and right-wing radical groups, including a. the Southern Baptist Convention , the Ku Klux Klan, and the right-wing John Birch Society . He cultivated friendships with Edwin Walker , the avowed fascist and Franco adviser General Charles Willoughby and the other Texan oil billionaire Clint Murchison , who according to the historian Anthony Summers u. a. George Lincoln financed Rockwell and his American Nazi Party .

Hunt first supported Republican presidential candidates like Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur , then the Democratic Texan Lyndon B. Johnson . After the Cuban Revolution, Hunt funded the Cuban Revolutionary Council , an organization of paramilitary Cuban exiles supported by the CIA and the American Mafia .

Hunt criticized President Kennedy for being too soft on communism ; his son Nelson Bunker Hunt printed a leaflet in 1963 that Kennedy aggressively attacked prior to his visit to Dallas. He supported the right-wing Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election campaign and organized a campaign for a constitution for rising nations . a. was propagated in the Dominican Republic .

family

H. L. Hunt married three times and had a total of fifteen children. In November 1914 he married Lyda Bunker (born January 26, 1889, † May 6, 1955) for the first time. The couple had seven children: Margaret (1915–2007), Haroldson Lafayette ( Hassie ) Hunt III (1917–2005), Caroline Rose (* 1923), Lyda Bunker (* 1925; died immediately after birth), Nelson Bunker (1926 –2014), William Herbert (* 1929) and Lamar (1932–2006).

While his (1st) marriage to Lyda Bunker still existed, H. L. Hunt married in 1925 under the name Franklin Hunt (in 2nd marriage / bigamy ) Frania Tye (1904-2002). Hunt's double game went undetected for nine years. During this time Lyda gave birth to three, Frania four children. The children of Frania Tye (Lee): Howard (1926–1975), Haroldina (* 1928), Helen (1930–1963) and Hugh (* 1934). Finally, in 1934 , second wife Frania Tye discovered a photo of HL Hunt with his eldest son in a newspaper and learned in this way that her husband was already married and she had married a bigamist, whereupon she separated from him. In 1942, Hunt reached an agreement with Frania Tye: Hunt undertook to pay Frania Tye a lifelong monthly income, in return Frania Tye signed a document in which she declared that there was never a marriage between her and H. L. Hunt.

Wife No. 1 Lyda (Bunker / so) died in 1955. In November 1957, two years after Lyda's death, the widower married the much younger ex-secretary Ruth Ray (March 3, 1917 - September 25, 1999) . Hunt subsequently adopted the four young children from Ruth Ray's (alleged) first marriage. Why Hunt, who already had ten biological children, adopted four children did not become known until some time later: the new wife had never been married before; rather, she had been the bigamist's lover since 1942 and the four children were Hunt's (biological) children.

The most famous sons include Lamar Hunt , owner of the Kansas City Chiefs and co-founder of the American Football League , Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt , who became famous for the silver speculation in the 1970s, and Ray Ley Hunt , the current chairman of Hunt Oil. The sons filed for bankruptcy in 1986 after losing their gigantic fortune to loan-financed silver deals and the collapse of the oil price .

literature

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Haroldson Hunt in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved September 5, 2017.
  2. ↑ Haroldson Hunt in the Notable Names Database (English)
  3. ^ The Famous People: HL Hunt
  4. ↑ Der Spiegel November 12, 1984: Poker, Profit and Propaganda
  5. ^ Encyclopedia of Arkansas: Mississippi Alluvial Plain
  6. ↑ My Oklahomian Exile: Wish I Was in the Land of Cotton: Part I
  7. ↑ Der Spiegel November 12, 1984: Poker, Profit and Propaganda
  8. ↑ Der Spiegel 06/22/1981: Cesare Borgia of the prairie , Von Roques, Valeska, SPIEGEL editor Valeska von Roques on the American television series "Dallas"
  9. ↑ a b Der Spiegel November 12, 1984: Poker, Profit and Propaganda. See graphic here: The three families of the HL Hunt
personal data
SURNAME Hunt, Haroldson
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hunt, Haroldson Lafayette
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American oil billionaire
DATE OF BIRTH February 17, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Illinois
DATE OF DEATH November 29, 1974
Place of death Dallas