USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume III > Part 24
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Distinctively popular in the professional, business and social circles of his adopted city, Mr. Francis here has the distinction of being president of the University Club at the time of this writing, in 1920. He is a member of the local Chamber of Commerce, the Wichita Club, the Wichita Falls Bar Association, and the Wichita Falls Golf and Country Club. While an undergraduate in the University of Texas he became affiliated with the Phi Delta Phi and Beta Theta Pi fraternities, in the former of which he was received on the high- est grades.
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G. C. JENSEN is a successful stockman. He has almost an intuitive and natural genius, exemplified when a mere youth in the handling and marketing of livestock. A stockman is inevitably a good business man, and it was natural executive power and judgment that brought Mr. Jensen a few years ago into ac- tive connection with the industry of refining and marketing the petroleum products of the Wichita district. Wichita Falls, therefore, knows him chiefly in the role of an oil refiner, as founder and president of the Sunshine State Oil & Refining Company.
In many senses the petroleum industry of the Wichita district reaches its climax in the great plant at Wichita Falls for the refining of the crude oil. It is an industry of which Mr. Jensen is properly proud, and the plant and equipment represent an equipment of $1,300,- 000. As the executive of this business Mr. Jensen is a man of the highest standing in financial and commercial circles, and his en- terprises are closely linked with the great commercial power now centered at Wichita Falls.
Mr. Jensen was born in the famous cattle and dairy country of Denmark about forty- five years ago. His parents brought him to America when he was twelve years of age, and he grew up on a farm in Marshall County, Kansas. He learned farming not only through
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the traditions of his native land and by prac- tical experience but also through a technical education in the Kansas State Agricultural College at Manhattan. While a successful oil refiner, Mr. Jensen is deeply interested in the cattle business even today. He began buy- ing and selling cattle when a boy. He was seventeen years of age when he made a ship- ment of cattle from Manhattan to the stock- yards in Kansas City. At the age of nineteen he undertook the mature responsibility of leas- ing the Standiford ranch in the eastern part of Cowley County, Kansas. At the age of twenty-one he went into the northeastern part of Oklahoma and took over a ranch on Turkey Creek, not far from the present City of Cushing. Subsequently his ranching and cattle interests extended to the Texas Pan- handle in Lipscomb County.
His active, energetic spirit and a natural talent for large business affairs eventually caused him to leave the cattle business and become identified with the oil industry at Wichita Falls. That city has been his home since 1916. He promoted and organized the Sunshine State Oil & Refining Company, and is properly proud of the fact that Wichita Falls has now one of the best modern refin- eries in the country. The corporation owns a line of tank cars, about two hundred in num- ber, and its refined oils are shipped all over the country. An auxiliary organization is the Sunshine Pipe Line Company, which Mr. Jensen also promoted and of which he was president. This company was taken over by the Sunshine State Oil & Refining Com- pany in December, 1920. The company owns the pipe lines leading direct from the oil fields to the refinery. The same companies also own and control some valuable produc- tion and oil land acreage.
Mr. Jensen since coming to Wichita Falls has allied himself with the progressive element of citizenship. He is a member of the Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce, the Wichita Club and the Forest Country Club, and be- longs to the various oil operators and refiners associations.
In 1916 he married Miss Mary E. Lutz, of El Reno, Oklahoma, who is associated with the Sunshine Oil Company in an executive office position. Fraternally Mr. Jensen is a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Lodge No. 417, Oklahoma City, and of Queen City Lodge No. 296, In- dependent Order of Odd Fellows, Wichita, Kansas. He is one of the four executive
officers of Texas of the Western Petroleum Refining Association, and is also a life meni- ber of the New York Petroleum Exchange.
BENJAMIN JOHNSTON TILLAR is one of the wealthy business men and financiers of Fort Worth. He built in Fort Worth its first dis- tinctively modern hotel, the Westbrook. His part in that enterprise alone would entitle him to more than passing consideration among the men who have been city builders in the mod- ern era of Fort Worth. However, that is in reality only one incident of many incidents which could be mentioned in a very busy career involving the management of large cat- tle ranches, real estate properties located in Fort Worth, Dallas and in other parts of Texas, and an executive in some of the most important financial and industrial corpora- tions of the Southwest.
Mr. Tillar is trustee and manager of the estates of J. T. W. Tillar and Antoinette Til- lar, the foundations of which were wisely planned and built by his father, who, though a resident of Arkansas, had widely extended investments in many parts of Texas.
Benjamin J. Tillar was born at Selma in Drew County, Arkansas, September 17, 1866, son of J. T. W. Tillar and Antoinette (Pruitt) Tillar. His father was a native of Virginia and his mother a native of Mississippi.
Benjamin J. Tillar at the age of four and one-half years entered the public school at Selma, attended both public and private schools, and at the age of thirteen years en- tered the University of Arkansas, from which institution he was graduated in 1886 with the A. B. degree.
In the fall of 1886 he took up the study of law at Little Rock in the office of that emi- nent lawyer and jurist, Judge U. M. Rose. Mr. Tillar acknowledges a life-long indebted- ness to the counsel and friendship of his venerable preceptor. In 1888 Mr. Tillar graduated with the LL.B. degree from the University of Michigan, but after a brief period of practice at Little Rock failing health compelled him to seek a more rugged vocation. In March, 1891, therefore, he in- troduced himself as a tenderfoot to a cattle ranch, the Block Ranch, located twenty-five miles south of Midland in West Texas, and was for several years diligently engaged in mastering and performing all the duties of a cowboy.
With restored health Mr. Tillar located at Fort Worth in 1894. He was one of the
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organizers of the National Live Stock Bank of Fort Worth: was elected its active vice president, and held that office until the Na- tional Live Stock Bank was merged with the American National Bank in 1897. He con- tinued to serve as a director on the board of directors of the latter bank.
In 1895 he became a member of the firm of Bush & Tillar. This firm within a few years acquired the ownership of approxi- mately 100,000 acres of ranch land, located in Howard, Borden, Mitchell and Scurry coun- ties, Texas. Bush & Tillar soon became one of the largest firms in the state in the produc- tion of beef cattle. Mr. Tillar was actively associated with that business until 1906.
In June, 1908, occurred the death of his father, whose estate, valued at several mil- lion dollars, was placed in the hands of the son as trustee and manager. Included in the estate was a large amount of valuable property located in Fort Worth, Dallas, Little Rock and Southeast Arkansas, and stock in many corporations. The value of this estate has been greatly increased under the able man- agement of Mr. Tillar, who has been faith- ful to every principle and item of his trustee- ship.
He has long been an active and honored member of the Cattle Raisers' Association of Texas.
In 1908 Mr. Tillar entered upon an active career as a city builder at Fort Worth, and concentrated many of his investments in the city. He financed and built the Westbrook Hotel, a million dollar structure. He is one of the owners of the hotel property, and serves in an advisory capacity with the management of the hotel. He is a director of the Farmers and Mechanics National Bank of Fort Worth, the Greater Fort Worth Realty Company, the Chamber of Commerce Auditorium Company, the Syndicate Land Company and other cor- porations. He is a member of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, the United States Chamber of Commerce; and is a member of the Fort Worth Club and River Crest Coun- try Club, of Fort Worth; and a member also of the National Arts Club, New York City.
Mr. Tillar is a wealthy man who realizes his responsibilities to the world as well as to private property. While not posing as a phi- lanthropist, he has done a great deal of con- structive work in the promotion of worthy enterprises. During the war he was a large contributor to the Red Cross funds. He is especially interested in art and in education.
He is a member and vice chairman of the Board of Trustees and member of the Execu- tive Committee of the Texas Woman's Col- lege, and annually donates twelve scholarships to aid deserving young girls and young women to acquire a higher education in that institu- tion. He has recently created a special en- dowment fund for the benefit of the holders of the Ben J. Tillar scholarships in the Texas Woman's College.
Mr. Tillar married Miss Genevieve Eagon, a native of Texas. Her father, Dr. Samson Eagon, was a native of Virginia, and was one of the ablest and best known physicians and surgeons in the Southwest.
LOUIS J. BRYAN, one of the Bryan Brothers of Wichita Falls was a pioneer operator in the Burkburnett field, and is known to have drilled more successful wells in that field than any other operator. In fact, the story of his operations and those of the Bryan Oil Corporation goes a long way toward com- pleting a suggestive outline of the history of petroleum production in this famous district.
The Bryan Oil Corporation of Wichita Falls, one of the largest and most successful and one of the highest financial rating, is com- posed of three brothers, C. A., L. J. and R. S. Bryan. They are all natives of Texas, and are young men who possess thorough busi- ness qualifications and had made themselves fairly prosperous in other lines before they combined their resources as oil operators.
Their parents, S. S. and Alice (Strickland) Bryan, are still living at Temple, in Bell County. S. S. Bryan was born within nine miles of Lexington, Kentucky, and was just two years old when his parents drove from there to Washington County, Texas. His grandfather had preceded them and made ar- rangements for a home on a plantation in Washington County. S. S. Bryan grew up in that historic old district of Texas. About the time he reached manhood the Santa Fe Rail- way was in process of construction from Gal- veston north toward Fort Worth. This af- forded one of the few opportunities for a young man to obtain employment outside of farming. He was connected with the con- struction of the road into Temple in Bell County. He helped drive the stakes in the laying out of that town, which owed its origin to the construction of the railway, and has since become one of the rich and prosperous cities of Central Texas. At Temple S. S. Bryan remained in the service of the Santa Fe
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Railway Company as car repairer, car inspec- tor and fireman for about fifteen years. He then turned his resources to the cattle industry in Bell County, and had a prosperous outlook until a protracted drought brought disaster. He then abandoned ranching and since about 1889 has been engaged in the retail furniture business in Temple. Alice Strickland was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Her father died on an overland journey to California in search of gold. As a young child she came with her mother to Galveston, Texas, and was reared and married in that city.
C. A. Bryan, the oldest of the Bryan broth- ers, was born at Temple in 1885 ; was educated in his native city, finishing the high school course and also a business college course. All three brothers have had some of the practical discipline and training of railroad service. C. A. Bryan after leaving school clerked in the Santa Fe roundhouse at Temple, later was private secretary to one of the officials of the Southern Pacific Railroad at Houston, and while in that city married Miss Eunice Munn. Her father, W. C. Munn, was one of the leading merchants of Houston. After his mar- riage, C. A. Bryan engaged in the real estate business at Houston and, organizing the Bryan Lumber Company, established lumber yards at Ganado and Providence. Subsequently he sold these yards and for several years was prominent in the real estate business, promot- ing and building an addition to the city'and also an addition to Texas City. This is a brief outline of his career until he entered the oil industry.
The youngest brother, R. S. Bryan, was also educated at Temple, and as a boy had ex- perience in various mechanical trades. At seventeen he was chief clerk in the freight depot at Temple for the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company, and remained in the service of that railway corporation for sev- eral years. Transferred to Fort Worth, he was in the office of the commercial agent as chief clerk, about a year later was sent to Dallas as clerk to the commercial agent of the same road in that city, and after eight months was appointed commercial agent at Waco. He was at Waco when America, entered the war with Germany, and in the spring of 1917 he enlisted as a private at San Antonio. In a short time he was made company clerk, and after sixty days' service was sent to the Offi- cers' Training Camp at Camp Pike, Arkansas. He received a commission as second lieutenant,
and up to the time the armistice was signed was on duty at Camp Sherman, Ohio.
Louis J. Bryan was born at Temple in 1887, and is a graduate of the regular high school and also the Fullview Select High School of Temple. His first business experience was as an employe of the Werkheiser-Polk Mill & Elevator Company at Temple. It was the en- gineering part of railroading that attracted him, and for a about a year he served as a chairman with the engineering corps of the Santa Fe company. To perfect his technical education he entered Purdue University at Lafayette, Indiana, and took a two years' course in engineering, leaving there in 1908. While at Purdue he paid practically all his own expenses, being employed during the summer vacations by the Cedar Point Resort Company on Lake Erie, near Sandusky, Ohio. After graduating he returned to Texas and re- entered the service of the Santa Fe Railway Company in the engineering department. He was with the engineering force on what was known as the old Cane Belt line between Sealy and Matagorda, also in the relaying of heavy steel between Summerville and Beau- mont, in the construction of the line between Center and Zuba and the extension from Long- view to Emmons. He then returned to Tem- ple and was one of the engineers during the construction of the extensive railroad yards in that city and the building of the handsome new depot. This work required about a year. Following that he was with the engineering corps during the construction of the line from Lometa to San Saba, Richland Springs, Brady and Eden, altogether for a period of about thirty months. For about a year Mr. Bryan was one of the corps of engineers working on the building of the Galveston causeway.
In 1913 he joined his brother, C. A. Bryan, in business at Houston. For some years pre- viously oil development work had been in progress along the coast region of Texas and still seemed to offer rewards for enterprise and capital. The Bryan Brothers decided to venture some money in the oil industry. Pur- chasing a rig and drilling outfit, Bryan Broth- ers put down a wild cat well in Liberty County to a depth of three thousand feet without touching oil sand. In the same vicinity they sank the drill a thousand feet, also without results. Their third experience was a con- tract to deepen a well that had already been drilled to twelve hundred feet on the Cochran Ranch in Liberty County. When the hole reached a depth of twenty-five hundred feet a
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generous flow of artesian water was encoun- tered, and as this was a valuable asset to the owner of the ranch, Bryan Brothers made some money on the deal. Their rig was then moved to the Humble field, where they bought an abandoned well, cleaned it out and made it produce about thirty barrels. In the mean- time they secured a twenty-acre lease adjoin- ing the well, and here they brought in their first real production, a six hundred barrel well. Six other holes were drilled on the same lease, and they continued their opera- tions there for some time. The net results of these operations to the Bryan Brothers con- stituted a few thousand dollars profit. Fol- lowing that they employed their equipment for other parties drilling some six or eight wells in the Humble field on contract. Moving them to the Goose Creek district, on a lease owned by the Humble Oil Company, they put the drill down 3,500 feet without a strike. In the same district, on Black Duck Bay, at 2,500 feet, they abandoned drilling. Next moving their rig to the Anna Allen Wright tract they brought in two good wells at 2,650 feet.
It was during these drilling operations that the Bryan Brothers started to seek an entirely new field, in Wichita County. The great oil boom at Burkburnett began with the bringing in of the Fowler well in the latter part of July, 1918. C. A. Bryan had reached Burk- burnett in May of that year, and had bought from W. J. Grisham two fifty-acre leases for sixty-five hundred dollars, paying fifteen hun- dred dollars cash and giving notes for the re- mainder. The first of these leases was on the E. Lewis survey adjoining the townsite of Burkburnett. In order to hold the lease Mr. Bryan put down an eight hundred foot well. Subsequently they disposed of this lease. Their second lease was on the John Deck survey, three miles southeast of Burkburnett. With the securing of these leases Bryan Brothers returned to Houston and resumed their opera- tions in the Goose Creek field. Then came in the Fowler well, and forthwith the Bryan Brothers began receiving offers for their Burk- burnett leases at such attractive figures above what they had paid that they decided their interests required their personal presence in the territory. It was only a few days after the bringing in of the Fowler well that Bryan Brothers reached Wichita Falls. For several days they were the busiest of local operators in selling leases, and those transactions made a large amount of profit to them. But they were not content with their nominal phase of
the business, and wired to Houston to ship their rig. In the meantime they closed a deal on six lots in block 7, Wigham Addition to the City of Burkburnett, and their outfit hav- ing arrived they put down a hole, the pro- duction coming in just before Christmas, 1918, with an estimated flow of a thousand barrels per day. In the meantime they had been drill- ing on their three-acre tract northwest of Burkburnett, and in January, 1919, brought in a well there with an initial production of a thousand barrels. Further drilling was car- ried on on their six lots of the Hardin Addi- tion to Burkburnett, just across the street from the schoolhouse. The first well, brought in during February, had a production of about a thousand barrels. About the same time they started two wells on five acres east of Burk- burnett on the Van Cleave tract, these coming in with a production of about six hundred barrels each. Subsequent deepening of these wells increased their production more than a thousand barrels each. These wells were com- pleted about May, 1919. Immediately two others were drilled adjoining and were equally as good, and are still producing, one of them to the extent of about one hundred and twenty barrels per day. The Bryan rig was then moved to a tract just east of the Burk- burnett schoolhouse, in the McGce Addition, and another paying well brought in. Moving then just across the street south of the school- house they drilled two other profitable holes. The Humble Oil Company had brought in a well in block 58 of the northwest extension to the Burkburnett oil field, and Bryan Broth- ers bought seventeen and one-half acres off- setting the Humble well. However, they sold this without developing it. Then came the Golden Cycle well, extending the Burkburnett field further to the northwest. Bryan Brothers secured the southeast ten acres of the Golden Cycle's forty acres. When the famous Texas Chief well, about three miles from the Golden Cycle, was brought in the Bryan Brothers se- cured leases offsetting that property, sank drills to the sand and secured one of the notable wells, with a five thousand barrel flow. Three other wells were drilled by them on the north end of the lease, and were also highly productive. In addition to this they sold thirty acres of their leases to the Livingston Oil Cor- poration for one of the highest prices leases were ever sold for in the State of Texas.
These items are indicated not as a complete record of the Bryan Brothers' activities or the development in Burkburnett as a whole, but as
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a suggestive outline of some of the outstand- ing features that display the aggressive enter- prise and the exceptional good fortune of the Bryans, who have well earned a reputation placing them among the most noted operators in the petroleum district of North Texas. Their operations were continued with striking success all during the year 1919 and well into 1920 in the same district. The Bryan Brothers still have large and valuable production in the Burkburnett field, also in Goose Creek field in Southern Texas, and in the fall of 1920 they extended their operations into the Electra field of Wichita County under the name of the Bryan Oil Corporation.
Louis Bryan possesses all the fundamental qualifications of the successful oil operator. He is an engineer by training and experience, accustomed to handling problems involving a great deal of technical detail, has courage, foresight, sound business judgment and works rapidly and efficiently. He has made oil de- velopment a permanent business and object of close study, and it cannot be said that success has come to him as a matter of chance.
Louis Bryan married Miss Eupha Polk, of San Saba. Her father, J. R. Polk, was a pioneer citizen of that section of Texas and was the second man to build a wire fence in San Saba County. Mr. Bryan himself owns a large and valuable ranch in San Saba County, two and a half miles from the county seat.
SAM WALKUP DAVIS is one of the very able young men in the profession of law in Stephens County, and within a year after he began prac- tice there he was nominated and subsequently elected county attorney.
Mr. Davis was born at Montgomery, Mont- gomery County, Texas, in 1898, a son of John F. and Lelia (Walkup) Davis. He is of Scotch-Irish ancestry. His paternal grand- father, the late Judge Nat Hart Davis, was a prominent lawyer and man of affairs in South- eastern Texas, serving as judge of the Dis- trict Court. About 1840 he built the house at Montgomery in which his son John F. Davis was born. John F. Davis is still living in Montgomery. Earlier generations of this branch of the Davis family lived in Kentucky and had kinship with the old Kentucky family of Davis to which Jefferson Davis belonged. The maternal grandfather of the Breckenridge lawyer was Gen. Samuel Walkup, whose fam- ily moved from North Carolina and estab- lished a home in Southeastern Texas in pio- VOL. III-9
neer days. General Walkup was first a colonel and then a brigadier general in the Confed- erate army.
Sam Walkup Davis is a graduate of the law school of the University of Texas with the class of 1918. He immediately on leaving the University entered the Officers' Training Camp at Leon Springs, the armistice being signed before he was awarded his commission. Early in January, 1919, he identified himself with West Texas, first locating at Albany and in July, 1919, removed to Caddo, in Stephens County. He practiced, with his offi- ces at Caddo, until May, 1920, when he re- moved to the county seat of Breckenridge. In July of that year he received the democratic nomination for county attorney over two strong opponents, being elected in November and taking office December 1st. Mr. Davis is making a splendid record as a public prose- cutor and also enjoys a fine civil practice. Fraternally he is an Elk.
THOMAS POOL ADAMS. A lawyer by early training and profession, representing a Texas family of pioneer stock, Thomas Pool Adams came to the Wichita Falls district about ten years ago, was associated with some of the early developments in the oil territory there, and has always upheld the highest standards in the exploitation of the underground re- sources of this wonderful country. Wichita Falls is his home city, and to it he has given generously of his personal enterprise and re- sources so that it may measure up to the best ideals of a business and civic community.
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