H. L. Hunt

Haroldson Lafayette Hunt, Jr. (1889 - 1974), better known as H. L. Hunt, was an American oil tycoon, and in his day one of the richest men in the world.

Birth and early life

He was born in Illinois, the youngest of eight children. His father, also named Haroldson Lafayette Hunt, was a prosperous farmer-entrepreneur; his mother was Ella Rose (Myers) Hunt.

He was educated at home, and as a teenager travelled to various places before settling in Arkansas, where he was running a cotton plantation by 1912. He ended up making lots of money from oil, although he lost quite a lot as well...

His family

Hunt married three times, and had fourteen children. His first wife was Lyda Buker (died 1955), whom he married in Arkansas on November 26, 1914. They had six children, the best-known of whom are Bunker[?] and Herbert[?]. In 1925, he married (bigamously) Frania Tye, and they had four children, before splitting up in 1942. Hunt then had four more children with his mistress, a Hunt Oil Company secretary named Ruth Ray, whom he married in 1957.

Here are the names of his fourteen children, not necessarily in order:-

1. William Herbert Hunt[?] (born c. 1929)
2. Nelson Bunker Hunt[?]
3. Helen Lee Cartledge Hunt[?] (deceased)
4. Haroldina Franch Hunt[?] (deceased)
5. Howard Lee Hunt[?] (deceased)
6. Hugh Hunt[?] (whereabouts unknown)
7. H. L. "Hassie" Hunt III[?] (born c. 1918) - diagnosed as a schizophrenic in the early 1940s; co-owner of Hunt Petroleum[?]
8. Margaret Hunt Hill[?] (born c. 1916), philanthropist and co-owner of Hunt Petroleum
9. Caroline Rose Hunt[?] (born c. 1923) - owner of a chain of hotels
10. Lamar Hunt[?] (born c. 1932) - co-founder of the American Football League and the North American Soccer League; owner of Kansas City Chiefs
11. Ray Lee Hunt[?] (born c. 1943) - chairman of Hunt Oil[?]
12. June Hunt[?] (born c. 1944) - host of a daily religious radio show, Hope for the Heart
13. Helen Lakelly Hunt[?] (born c. 1949) - a pastoral counselor in Dallas; co-manager of the Hunt Alternatives Fund[?], one of the family's charitable arms
14. Swanee Hunt[?] (born c. 1950) - former U.S. ambassador to Austria; now head of the Women and Public Policy Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government[?] in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and co-manager of the Hunt Alternatives Fund[?]

External links

• Biography of H. L. Hunt (http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/HH/fhu59) by Jerrell Dean Palmer in the Handbook of Texas Online
• Article on Bunker Hunt (http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:UzuGOZgzbfEC:www.texasmonthly.com/mag/issues/2001-09-01/business3.php+%22h.+l.+hunt%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) by S. C. Gwynne in TexasMonthly, September 2001