In Daingerfield, Tex. (pop. 1,700) the townsfolk were as excited as if a 10,000-barrel gusher had just blown in. But this time the excitement was not over oil. It was over steel—the $24,000,000 Lone Star Steel Co. blast furnace and plant which the Government had built during the war, right next to Texas' vast iron-ore deposits. It was the first—and only—blast furnace in Texas. Texans thought then that their fondest industrial dream of a native steel industry would finally come true. But at war's end, Lone Star was closed. If Texas wanted a steel industry, Texans would have to take over Lone Star from WAA.
While they discussed ways & means, they got bad news. U.S. Steel had made a bid for the Government-owned Oklahoma mines, which supplied coal to Lone Star. (There was no suitable coal in Texas.) If Big Steel, which wanted the coal for its Sheffield fabricating plant in Houston, got the mines, Lone Star was done for. Was Big Steel bigger than Texas?
One Texan who didn't think so was Dallas' yippy, yeasty John William Carpenter, 65, the state's prime booster. He had built the state's first power & light company (which ran only at night "except for one day a week for ironing"), became president of its second largest one in 1927. Now he had a hand in more than 42 different enterprises, ranging from the Jack and Mule Breeders Association to river & harbor improvements. But his greatest concern for the past 25 years has been that "every bolt, every nut, every spool of wire had to come from way off."
In 1942, it took him just one month to organize the company which had operated Lone Star for the Government. U.S. Steel made Carpenter move even faster. He promptly rounded up his old Lone Star Steel associates—ranchers, oilmen, bankers. There was Robert L. Thornton, the boisterous, robust president of Dallas' third largest (Mercantile National) bank. Once a sharecropper, Thornton describes himself as "a mule in carriage harness," has pushed through some notable projects (e.g., a 33-story skyscraper erected in Dallas during the war) with the exhortation: "Put on the collar and hamestring."
There was also Fred Florence, the polished, soft-speaking head of Dallas' Republic National Bank which, thanks to Florence's shrewd conservative banking, now ranks as Dallas' No. 2 bank.
$1,000,000 In Ten Days. Already they had an option to buy Lone Star for $7,500,000 (with no initial down payment), and three of the Oklahoma mines. But WAA insisted on additional operating capital of $1,000,000, to be raised within ten days. So Carpenter & friends organized a financial posse, struck out for the red clay hills around Daingerfield. At crossroad gatherings and town rallies, they sold thousands of shares of stock, got some $100,000 from Longview (pop. 13,758) alone.
The final stop last week was Daingerfield. There the barnstormers were greeted by a court square full of people. "How much do you want?" asked one citizen. The answer: $20,000. The town barber promptly plunked down $150, said: "A guy just can't go wrong." In a few hours $32,000 was raised.