Howard Robard Hughes Sr. (September 9, 1869 – January 14, 1924) was an American businessman and inventor. He was the founder of

Hughes Tool Company Hughes Tool Company was an American manufacturer of drill bits. Founded in 1908, it was merged into Baker Hughes Incorporated in 1987. History The company was established in December 1908 as Sharp-Hughes Tool Company when Howard R. Hughes S ...

. He invented the "Sharp–Hughes" rotary tri-cone rock drill bit during the

Texas Oil Boom The Texas oil boom, sometimes called the gusher age, was a period of dramatic change and economic growth in the U.S. state of Texas during the early 20th century that began with the discovery of a large petroleum reserve near Beaumont, Texas. T ...

. He is best known as the father and namesake of

Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, film producer, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and richest people in th ...

, the famous American business tycoon.

Early life

Howard Robard Hughes Sr. was born on September 9, 1869, in

Lancaster, Missouri Lancaster is a city in Schuyler County, Missouri, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 675. It is the county seat of Schuyler County. Lancaster is part of the Kirksville Micropolitan Statistical Area. History A post offic ...

, the son of Jean Amelia (

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

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. His younger brother,

Rupert Hughes Rupert Raleigh Hughes (January 31, 1872 – September 9, 1956) was an American novelist, film director, Academy Award, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, military officer, and music composer. He was the brother of Howard R. Hughes Sr. and uncle of bi ...

, was a famed novelist and screenwriter. Another brother, Felix Jr., was a baritone opera singer. Hughes was a classic

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

, trying and failing at many things before eventually finding success. After spending his childhood and early adulthood in Keokuk,

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...

, he lived in various places such as

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

(where he was a member of the

Harvard Club Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan cler ...

);

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

; Joplin, Missouri; and

Beaumont Beaumont may refer to: Places Canada * Beaumont, Alberta * Beaumont, Quebec England * Beaumont, Cumbria * Beaumont, Essex **Beaumont Cut, a canal closed in the 1930s * Beaumont Street, Oxford France (communes) * Beaumont, Ardèche * Be ...

, Texas; before finally settling in

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

(where Howard Jr. was born).

Education

Hughes Sr. was educated at

Missouri Military Academy The Missouri Military Academy (MMA) is a private preparatory school established on November 22, 1889, in Mexico, Missouri. The academy is a selective, all male, boarding school, grades 7 to 12. As a U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers' Trainin ...

, in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, Missouri. He then entered

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1893, dropping out the next year.

Career

Hughes Sr. married Allene Stone Gano, on June 24, 1904, in

Dallas County Dallas County may refer to: Places in the USA: * Dallas County, Alabama, founded in 1818, the first county in the United States by that name * Dallas County, Arkansas * Dallas County, Iowa * Dallas County, Missouri * Dallas County, Texas, the nin ...

, Texas and engaged in various mining business endeavors before capitalizing on the

Spindletop Spindletop is an oil field located in the southern portion of Beaumont, Texas, in the United States. The Spindletop dome was derived from the Louann Salt evaporite layer of the Jurassic geologic period. On January 10, 1901, a well at Spindleto ...

oil discovery in Texas, as a result of which he began devoting his full-time to the oil business. On November 20, 1908, he filed the basic

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

s for the Sharp-Hughes Rock Bit, and on August 10, 1909, was granted and for this rock drill. Hughes's two-cone rotary drill bit, nicknamed "rock eater", penetrated medium and hard rock with ten times the speed of any former bit, and its development revolutionized

oil well An oil well is a drillhole boring in Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is released as associated petroleum gas along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce only gas may ...

drilling. 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 the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

show ''

History Detectives ''History Detectives'' is a documentary television series on Public Broadcasting Service, PBS. It features investigations made by members of a small team of researchers to identify and/or authenticate items which may have historical significance or ...

'', several other people and companies had produced similar drill bits years earlier. In its initial tests at Goose Creek Oilfield in 1909 where the first

offshore drilling Offshore drilling is a mechanical process where a wellbore is drilled below the seabed. It is typically carried out in order to explore for and subsequently extract petroleum that lies in rock formations beneath the seabed. Most commonly, the te ...

for oil in Texas was occurring in Harris County, southeast of Houston on

Galveston Bay Galveston Bay ( ) is a bay in the western Gulf of Mexico along the upper coast of Texas. It is the seventh-largest estuary in the United States, and the largest of seven major estuaries along the Texas Gulf Coast. It is connected to the Gulf of ...

, the Sharp-Hughes Rock Bit penetrated in 11 hours of hard rock which no previous equipment had been able to penetrate at all. He co-founded the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company with

Walter Benona Sharp Walter Benona Sharp (12 December 1870 - 28 November 1912) was an American oilman and innovator in drilling techniques. Early life Sharp was born in Tipton County, Tennessee to James R. and Amanda Forrest Sharp. His mother died when he was eight an ...

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 of Hughes Tool Company (as it was renamed) were August 10, 1909 patents for his dual-cone rotary drill bit. The fees for

licensing A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

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 his quest to the Earth's center to

Amundsen's South Pole expedition The first ever expedition to reach the South Pole, geographic Southern Pole was led by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. He and four others arrived at the pole on 14 December 1911, five weeks ahead of a British party led by Robert Falcon ...

and

Robert Peary Robert Edwin Peary Sr. (; May 6, 1856 – February 20, 1920) was an American explorer and officer in the United States Navy who made several expeditions to the Arctic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for, in Apri ...

's North Pole expeditions.

Death and legacy

On January 14, 1924, Hughes Sr. died of a heart attack caused by an

embolism An embolism is the lodging of an embolus, a blockage-causing piece of material, inside a blood vessel. The embolus may be a blood clot (thrombus), a fat globule ( fat embolism), a bubble of air or other gas (gas embolism), amniotic fluid (amniot ...

at his company's offices on the fifth floor of the

Humble Oil Building The Humble Oil Building, is a historic office building, designed in the Italian Renaissance architecture style, located at 1212 Main Street in Houston, Texas and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was constructed by Humble ...

in Houston at the age of 54. 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. A little more than a year after his father's death, Hughes Jr. had himself declared an adult (the age of majority at the time being 21) and bought out his grandparents and uncle, now controlling the entirety of Hughes Tool Company. The next year in 1925, Hughes Jr. appointed

Noah Dietrich Noah Dietrich (February 28, 1889 – February 15, 1982) was an American businessman, who was the chief executive officer of the Howard Hughes business empire from 1925 to 1957. (Even though these dates have been recorded as the official period of e ...

as CEO of Hughes Tool while he himself left for California to pursue filmmaking and aviation. 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 into

filmmaking Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, casti ...

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...

, and the casino industry in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las 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 with Baker International to form

Baker Hughes Baker Hughes Company, organized in Delaware and headquartered in Houston, is one of the world's largest oil field services companies. The company provides products and services for oil well drilling, formation evaluation, completion, productio ...

, a large oilfield services company still based in Houston.

Awards and achievements

The "Sharp–Hughes" patent rotary rock drill bit was designated a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the

American Society of Mechanical Engineers The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing ...

on August 10, 2009, at The Woodlands, Texas.

References

External links

Howard R. Hughes Sr.
at the ''

Handbook of Texas The ''Handbook of Texas'' is a comprehensive encyclopedia of Texas geography, history, and historical persons published by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). History The original ''Handbook'' was the brainchild of TSHA President Wal ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Howard R. Sr. 1869 births 1924 deaths American businesspeople in the oil industry American chief executives of manufacturing companies American investors American inventors American manufacturing businesspeople Burials at Glenwood Cemetery (Houston, Texas) Businesspeople from Missouri Harvard University alumni Iowa State University alumni People educated at Missouri Military Academy People from Lancaster, Missouri