The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Capitalism at its most colorful oozes across the pages of this engrossing study of independent oil men. Vanity Fair special correspondent Burrough (coauthor, Barbarians at the Gate) profiles the Big Four oil dynasties of H.L. Hunt, Roy Cullen, Clint Murchison and Sid Richardson, along with their cronies, rivals, families and, in Hunt's case, bigamous second and third families. The saga begins heroically in the early 20th-century oil boom, with wildcatters roaming the Texas countryside drilling one dry hole after another, scrounging money and fending off creditors until gushers of black gold redeem them. Their second acts as garish nouveaux riches with strident right-wing politics are entertaining, if less dramatic. Decline sets in as rising production costs and cheaper Middle Eastern oil erode profits, and a feckless, feuding second generation squanders family fortunes on debauchery and reckless investment—H.L.'s sons' efforts in 1970 to corner the silver market bankrupted them and almost took down Wall Street. This is a portrait of capitalism as white-knuckle risk taking, yielding fruitful discoveries for the fathers, but only sterile speculation for the sons—a story that resonates with today's economic upheaval. (Jan. 27)
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From The New Yorker

When a huge oil reserve was discovered at Spindletop, in southeast Texas, in 1901, the state was an inward-looking �hell with cows� built around lumber, cotton, and cattle. In this riveting history, Burrough charts the decades-long rush that made Texas oil into a political and economic powerhouse through the lives of the four great barons: Hugh Roy Cullen, Clint Murchison, Sid Richardson, and H. L. Hunt. Each began his foray into oil as a wildcatter, striking it rich through a combination of intuition and bravado. The fortunes of the Big Four swelled during the Second World War, when the United States was the world�s leading producer of crude, but by the nineteen-eighties Middle Eastern oil was ascendant, and the barons� legacies had �dissolved into a sordid litany of debauchery, family feuds, scandals, and murder.� Burrough brings each of his outsized subjects brilliantly to life, pitching their individual epics against a grand narrative of rise and decline.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The (January 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594201994
• ISBN-13: 978-1594201998
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.7 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,298 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars TEXAS WILDCATTERS, February 1, 2009

By	Shannon Deason "SchylarRex" (Houston) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This book takes on a subject that has been neglected for far too long. To understand conservative Texas today, you really need an education on the men that shaped it, namely ..Hunt, Cullen, Murchison, and Richardson. All four of these men are uniquely Texan, good and bad. Cullen is by far the most philanthropic, but in many ways the least enteresting, he lived a mostly quite life in Houston's enclave of wealth, River Oaks, and gave away 90 percent of his fortune. What I find most interesting, is that this most conservative of men, gave millions to Texas Southern, Houston's traditionally African American university; he also funded the University of Houston, it's not an understatement to call him Mr. Houston. H.L. Hunt is by far the most interesting, but by far the least philanthropic, Im not sure he ever gave to anything but the Klan, but his three families and all his silly ideas are so hilarious, you really have to give it to the guy for being colorful..Hurt's book on H.L. Hunt is fantastic..his meantion of H.L.'s "creeping" is the limit. As for Richardson, he was in may ways the quenticential Wildcatter, he had the look, the charm, and the bravado, and his collection of Western memorabilia is amazing. Murchison, on the other hand, was more like a brilliant accountant, and look liked one, he was the least like a traditional Wildcatter. This book also delves into the lives of the offspring of these iconic men. Murchisons son, of course founded the Dallas Cowboys, the subsequently, partied all the money away, Richardson's Bass family, has had their share of scandel, divorces et.al. and of course Hunts son's tried to corner the silver market in the 80's..talk about chutzpa and his son Lamar co founded the American Football League and owned the Kansas City Chiefs. Even the staid Cullen had an interesting grandson, the simply ridiculous Baron "Ricky" Di Portenova, he claimed to be an Italian Count on his father side, nobody bought it in Houston, but alas he was colorful, and threw some amazing parties at his mansion in River Oaks and his palace on a hill in Acapulco. Overall, this is a fun read, well written and researched, if you have any interest in Texas history and the Texas Oil Rich, then I cant imagine you not loving this book...as for the unhelpful vote..it just shows that on Amazon there is always at least one person who will find a black cloud on a sunny day..I mean how on earth is this review not helpful?

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Take a romp in the Texas oil patch, January 30, 2009

By	Susanna Hutcheson "Copywriting for the Discri... (Midwest U.S.A.) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The rich Texas oil people have always been a source of fascination to most all of us. In this new book, Bryan Burrough gives us the history of the oil rich. He was a co-author, with John Helyar, of the exciting book"Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco." He is also a native of Texas.

He leads us through the lives of the Texan oil rich, Roy Cullen of Houston, Sid Richardson of Fort Worth, and Clint Murchison and H. L. Hunt of Dallas.

"If Texas Oil had a Mount Rushmore, their faces would adorn it," Burrough writes. "A good ol' boy. A scold. A genius. A bigamist. Known in their heyday as the Big Four, they became the founders of the greatest Texas family fortunes, headstrong adventurers who rose from nowhere to take turns being acclaimed America's wealthiest man."

You'll enjoy the stories that can only happen in Texas. For example, you'll see Hunt going between his three families, Cullen in a a war bond drive that and another wealthy Texan wearing and throwing away $100 bills as bow ties.

I found this to be a well researched book. It's fast and exciting reading. It gives you a look at contemporary history but, at the same time, a personal look into the lives of those who lived large from the fruits of the black gold that poured from the Texas landscape.

Highly recommended.

- Susanna K. Hutcheson

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wildcats, Stewardesses and Hell with Cows, March 25, 2009

By	MJS "Constant Reader" (New York, United States) - See all my reviews

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You might be tempted to read this book to better understand the oil industry or how Texas went from populism to conservatism or even how one might go about cornering the world market on a precious metal. Certainly you would learn about all these topics by reading The Big Rich. But you would be missing the point. The point of The Big Rich is a Texas-size good time. Why? Because the crazy factor is through the roof.

The Big Rich in question are mainly the Big Four: Sid Richardson, Roy Cullen, Clint Murchison and H.L. Hunt and their families with occasional appearances by a "lesser" oil millionaires. Not a single one of them acquired their wealth in a boring manner. Physical derring-do, financial brinkmanship and fantastic luck all play a role in striking oil and amassing incomprehensibly large fortunes. There's something innocent and charming about the antics of the Big Four - opening fancy hotels in the middle of nowhere or creating their own private clubhouse for the boys, at age 30 - at least the antics that don't involve H.L. Hunt and his bigamous desire to propagate his genes at widely as possible. H.L. is quite the character or "crank" as he describes himself. I'd substitute "creep" in place of "crank" but there's no doubt that he'd be happy to drink someone else's milkshake given the opportunity.

The fun hits the stratosphere when the second generation of big rich takes the stage. Bunker and Lamar Hunt are nearly as loony as dear old dad in their wacky hi-jinks such as the actual physical storage of a large percentage of the world's silver and their freelance wiretapping. Baron "Ricky" di Portanova seems to have been Patient Zero when it comes to the disease of EuroTrash complete with wife named Ljuba, pet monkey and marital pep talks from Kirk Douglas.

In any other book they'd be the most entertainingly crazy characters. But in this book has Clint Murchison Jr and he will take your crazy and raise it ten times. In the space of a mere ten years he's launching a new company, building a resort and funding a pirate radio station in the Baltic Sea, and starting the Dallas Cowboys. And that's just his day job, Clint also has some fascinating hobbies: drugs (cocaine) and stewardesses (Braniff). As Burroughs explains, Braniff Airways

"became one of his obsessions. In the early '60s Clint actually began attending their graduation, sitting in a back row eyeing his would-be conquests."

Clint Murchison, I never met you and I'm amazed that your first wife didn't take an axe to your head on multiple occasions but for living a life that allowed such a sentence to be written I salute you, sir. You're the most crazily trashy person in a book filled with trashy crazy people. You go, Clint Murchison, wherever you are. (Also, way to cut out the middleman!)

Clint was called to glory in 1987 and today most of the entertainingly crazy scions of the Big Rich are also gone or bankrupt. The tales of their declines aren't nearly as much fun to read but that's hardly surprising. You can't top Joan Crawford trying to bag Sid Richardson with excerpts from bankruptcy proceedings.

Bryan Burrough has done his homework and explains the oil industry, the efforts to regulate it, and the intricacies of several lawsuits in a surprisingly accessible way. Still, as with all his books, what Burrough does best is tell a complex, wide-angle story with enough energy and just sheer enjoyment to fill out a half dozen summer blockbusters. It's like the Life cereal commercials used to say: "It's good tasting and good for you."

Kindle note: no photographs or linked index in the Kindle edition. The footnotes and sources are linked.