Howard R. Hughes, Sr. | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Hughes Sr. in 1917 | |
| Born | Howard Robard Hughes (1869-09-09)September 9, 1869 Lancaster, Missouri, U.S. |
| Died | January 14, 1924(1924-01-14) (aged 54) Houston, Texas, U.S. |
| Burial place | Glenwood Cemetery, Houston, Texas 29°45′56″N95°23′07″W / 29.7656°N 95.3852°W /29.7656; -95.3852 |
| Education | Missouri Military Academy |
| Alma mater |
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| Occupation(s) | Founder ofHughes Tool Company,businessman |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (son) |
| Relatives | Rupert Hughes (brother) |
Howard Robard Hughes Sr. (September 9, 1869 – January 14, 1924) was an American businessman and inventor who founded theHughes Tool Company. He invented the "Sharp–Hughes"two-cone rotary drill bit during theTexas Oil Boom. Hughes was the father and namesake ofHoward Hughes (Howard Robard Hughes Jr.), the American business tycoon and founder ofHughes Aircraft.
Howard Robard Hughes Sr. was born on September 9, 1869, inLancaster, Missouri, the son of Jean Amelia (née Summerlin; 1842–1928) and Judge Felix Turner Hughes (1837–1926). Hughes's older sister Greta, better known by her stage name Jeanne Greta, was a grand opera and concert singer.[1] His younger brother,Rupert Hughes, was a famed novelist and screenwriter. Another brother, Felix Jr., was a baritone opera singer.[1] Hughes was a classicentrepreneur, trying and failing at many things before eventually finding success.
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After spending his childhood and early adulthood inKeokuk,Iowa; he lived in various places such asNew York City, where he was a member of theHarvard Club;Denver;Joplin, Missouri; andBeaumont, Texas, prior to finally settling inHouston; where his son Howard Jr. was born.[2]
Hughes Sr. was educated atMissouri Military Academy, inMexico, Missouri.[3] He then enteredHarvard University in 1893, dropping out the next year.[4][5]
After leaving Harvard in '94, I found myself in the Law School of the Iowa State University. It was my father's wish that I succeed him in his practice. Too impatient to await the course of graduation, I passed the examination before the Supreme Court of Iowa and began the practice of law. I soon found the law a too-exacting mistress for a man of my talent, and I quit her between dark and dawn, and have never since been back. I decided to search for my fortune under the surface of the earth.
— Howard Hughes Sr., 1912[4]
Hughes Sr. married Allene Stone Gano, on June 24, 1904, inDallas County, Texas, and engaged in various mining business endeavors before capitalizing on theSpindletop oil discovery in Texas, as a result of which he began devoting his full time to the oil business. In 1906, Hughes began experiments of ways to replace the state of the art technology at that time, the fishtail bit. (See image)
In 1908, he andWalter Benona Sharp, his business partner, built a two-cone drill bit model using wood.[6] On November 20, 1908, he filed the basicpatents for the Sharp-Hughes Rock Bit, and on August 10, 1909, was grantedU.S. patent 930,758 andU.S. patent 930,759 for this rock drill. Hughes'stwo-cone rotary drill bit, nicknamed "rock eater", penetrated medium and hard rock with ten times the speed of any former bit, and its development revolutionizedoil well drilling.[4]
It is unlikely that he actually invented the two-cone roller bit, but his legal experience helped him in understanding that its patents were important for capitalizing on the invention. According to thePBS showHistory Detectives, several other people and companies had produced similar drill bits years earlier. In its initial tests atGoose Creek Oil Field in 1909 where the firstoffshore drilling for oil in Texas was occurring inHarris County, 21 mi (34 km) southeast of Houston onGalveston Bay, the Sharp-Hughes Rock Bit penetrated in 11 hours 14 ft (4.3 m) of hard rock which no previous equipment had been able to penetrate at all.
During WWI, he invented atunnel boring machine for soldiers to create tunnels from their trenches.[6]
He co-founded theSharp-Hughes Tool Company withWalter Benona Sharp in 1909, and after Sharp's death in 1912, took over management. Hughes began purchasing the Sharp stock immediately and by 1918 had acquired full ownership of the company. The essential assets ofHughes Tool Company, as it was renamed, were August 10, 1909, patents for his dual-cone rotary drill bit. The fees forlicensing this technology were the basis of Hughes Tool's revenues, and by 1914 the dual-cone roller bit was used in eleven U.S. states and in thirteen foreign countries. Hughes himself whimsically remarked that one of his "fond plans" was to "drill the deepest well in the world", comparing hisquest to the Earth's center toAmundsen's South Pole expedition andRobert Peary's North Pole expeditions.[4]
100 years after the Hughes drill bit had been patented, theAmerican Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) designated the technology aHistoric Mechanical Engineering Landmark on August 10, 2009.[6]
| Device | Year Patented | Inventor(s) | Assignee | Nations Patents Issued from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Improvements in Drill Heads[7] | 1910 | Howard R. Hughes | Howard R. Hughes | Great Britain |
| Roller-drill[8] | 1911 | Howard R. Hughes | Individual | U.S. |
| Roller Rotary Drill[9] | 1912 | Howard R. Hughes | Individual | Austria |
| Extension Roller Drill[10] | 1914 | Howard R. Hughes | Individual | Austria |
| Roller Boring-drill[11] | 1914 | Howard R. Hughes | Individual | U.S. |
| Improvements in Roller Boring Drills.[12] | 1914 | Howard R. Hughes | Individual | Great Britain |
| Rotary Drills[13] | 1915 | Howard R. Hughes | Individual | Austria |
| Improved Method of Sapping or Destroying Military Trenches Blasting and the Like.[14] | 1917 | Howard R. Hughes | Individual | Great Britain |
| Improvements in or relating to Drilling Machines.[15] | 1917 | Howard R. Hughes | Individual | Great Britain |
| Improvements in the Method of and Apparatus for Forming and Enlarging Bore Holes.[16] | 1917 | Howard R. Hughes | Individual | Great Britain |
| Improvements in the construction of perforating machines used for drilling horizontal holes.[17] | 1919 | Howard R. Hughes | Individual | France |
| Improvements to the Process and the Apparatus for Drilling and Widening Boreholes.[18] | 1919 | Howard R. Hughes | Individual | France |
| Rotary Earth Boring Drill[19] | 1923 | Howard R. Hughes, Charles Kuldell Rudolph | Hughes Tools, Inc. | Canada |
On January 14, 1924, Hughes Sr. died of a heart attack caused by anembolism at his company's offices on the fifth floor of theHumble Oil Building in Houston at the age of 54.[21] After his death, his only child,Howard Jr., assumed control of the company as its 75% owner at the age of 19. In his will, Hughes Sr. had left the remaining 25% to his parents, Felix Sr. and Mimi, and his brother Felix Jr.[21] A little more than a year after his father's death, Hughes Jr. had himselfdeclared an adult (the age of majority at the time being 21) and bought out his grandparents and uncle for full control of Hughes Tool Company. The next year in 1925, Hughes Jr. appointedNoah Dietrich as CEO of Hughes Tool while he himself left for California to pursue filmmaking and aviation.[21]
In 1933, Hughes Tool engineers created a tri-cone rotary drill bit, and from 1934 to 1951 Hughes's market share approached 100%. The Sharp-Hughes Rock Bit found virtually all the oil discovered during the initial years of rotary drilling, and Hughes Jr. became one of the wealthiest people in the world from its revenues. Returning to play a more central role in Hughes Tool in the 1940s, Hughes Jr. diversified the company's holdings by expanding intofilmmaking,aviation, and the casino industry inLas Vegas, although his father's core tool manufacturing business remained by far the company's chief source of revenue. In 1972, by which time Hughes Tool had become widely diversified, Hughes Jr. sold the nucleus tool division and realized $150 million from the sale. In 1987, Hughes Tool merged withBaker International to formBaker Hughes, a large oilfield services company still based in Houston.[22]
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