Business & Finance: No. 1 Texas Trade

In 1913 a big, brusque Arkansan named M. Frank Yount and a florid West Virginian named Thomas Peter Lee started Yount-Lee Oil Co. at Beaumont, Tex. On an original capital of $50,000 they spent 13 years drilling in Texas and Louisiana without spectacular success. Then suddenly, in 1926, Yount-Lee made national news by rediscovering the famed Spindletop Field near Beaumont. Everybody supposed that Spindletop had been drained dry. Yount-Lee opened a rich new producing sand by drilling deeper than anybody had had the courage to go before. Later the company discovered and developed the...

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