The legends about him were legion. Dun & Bradstreet, so the story goes, once characterized him: "Estimated worth, $500,000,000. Pays bills promptly." Yet he had been broke so often, he once quipped, that "I thought it was habit forming." Always on the go, he kept three sets of suitcases in his two-room suite at the Fort Worth Club, packed with clothes for three different climates—hot, cold and medium.
Folksy, derrick-sized Sid Williams Richardson, unlike some of his fellow Texas wheeler-dealers, never hunted publicity, often quoted one of his favorite maxims: "You ain't learnin' nothin' when you're...