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Haroldson Lafayette Hunt, Jr. (February 17, 1889 - November 29, 1974), better known as H.L. Hunt, was an American oil tycoon.
Biography
Hunt was born near Ramsey, in Carson Township, Fayette County, Illinois,the youngest of eight children. He was named after his father, Haroldson Lafayette Hunt, who 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 his fortune in the oil business.
Hunt married three times, and had fourteen children. His first wife was Lyda Bunker (died 1955), whom he married in Arkansas on November 26, 1914. They had six children, the best-known of whom are Bunker, Lamar and Herbert. In 1925, he married (bigamously) Frania Tye, and they had four children, including Hugh Hunt, 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.
Following his death in 1974, H. L. Hunt was buried in the Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery in Dallas, Texas.
Here are the names of his fourteen children, not necessarily in order:
- William Herbert Hunt (born c. 1929)
- Nelson Bunker Hunt (born 1926) attempted to corner the world silver market in 1979, and was convicted of fraud.
- Helen Lee Cartledge Hunt (deceased)
- Haroldina Franch Hunt (deceased)
- Howard Lee Hunt (deceased)
- Hugh Hunt (born c. 1932, lived in Potomac Maryland, died November 12, 2002, founder of Constructivist Foundation.)
- H. L. "Hassie" Hunt III (born c. 1918) - diagnosed with schizophrenia in the early 1940s; co-owner of Hunt Petroleum
- Margaret Hunt Hill (born c. 1916), philanthropist and co-owner of Hunt Petroleum
- Caroline Rose Hunt (born January 8, 1923) - owner of a chain of hotels
- Lamar Hunt (born August 2, 1932) - co-founder of the American Football League and the North American Soccer League; owner of the Kansas City Chiefs
- Ray Lee Hunt (born c. 1943) - chairman of Hunt Oil
- June Hunt (born c. 1944) - host of a daily religious radio show, Hope for the Heart
- 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
- Swanee Hunt (born May 1, 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 by Jerrell Dean Palmer in the Handbook of Texas Online
1889 births | 1974 deaths | American oil industrialists | People from Texas
"H. L. Hunt"