Customer Reviews

Black Diamonds! Black Gold!: The Saga of Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company

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I read this book a few years ago and loved it. The story of the Texas and Pacific Coal and Oil company seems so typically American. From the crooked Yankee come South who recognizes the coal that was a nuisance to the farmer scratching out a living, the New York financiers who put the enterprise on a secure financial foundation and did very well by themselves in the process, the immigrant miners, prosperous company town, self-taught geololgist who opened up the Ranger oil field, a gas-pump juckey who earned a raise in the midst of the depression selling lube jobs and treating his wife to a mid-week hamburger, the names which dot Fort Worth buildings and streets, this book covers and links up an America and Texas from frontier to the outlines of its present corporate complexity.

Was researching family history and amazingly stumbled across a story in this well written book of my Great Great Scottish Immigrant Grandfather recieving a Gold medal for saving 50 miners from a coal mine fire in Thurber,Texas in 1897. The Part about the crowd at the mine falling silent in awe, when my grandfather stepped forward to volunteer for what was considered a suicide mission, was inspiring to me.(pages 56-58)I found this thru your "look inside book" application, but plan on buying several copies of this well researched book for family members.

I have no personal family historical material: I have found out many of my ancestors are historical figures, which is a lucky thing.

Searching Great Aunt Ruth Jones Fuqua who married Nolen Jones Fuqua, I found this book about him and his brother H.B. "Babe" Fuqua. This book gives the whole shell of a story explaining the Census data for Nolen as "Sales Mgt for Oil Company".

I met my Great Uncle Nolen at a Family wedding once, but never met H.B. Fuqua...

Fascinating tale of oil and coal booms and how sometimes the CEO's had principles.