CORPORATIONS: Boiling Oil

By winning most of the fights he got into, Tulsa Oilman William Grove Skelly built one of the nation's best-integrated, best-run independents. Nevertheless, his Skelly Oil Co. almost went under in the lean-pursed '30s. Hard-hitting, fast-thinking Bill Skelly raised the cash to save the company, but he lost control to J. Paul Getty, sporty Los Angeles oilman and Manhattan hotel owner (the Pierre). Skelly, staying on as president of his company, a subsidiary of Getty's Mission Corp., in time became Mission's president also.

Last week, Tulsans feared that Bill Skelly had won...

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