Walter William Fondren Sr. (June 6, 1877

Union City, Tennessee Union City is located in Obion County, Tennessee, United States. The 2020 census reported the population of the town as 11,170. It is the principal urban settlement of the surrounding micropolitan area, which includes Obion County and Fulton Count ...

– January 5, 1939) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

oil industry The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation (often by oil tankers and pipelines), and marketing of petroleum products. The larges ...

businessperson and philanthropist in

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. He co-founded Humble Oil Company, an antecedent to

ExxonMobil ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...

Early life

Walter William Fondren was born in

to two first cousins, Thomas and Susannah Fondren. His father died when he was a young child, and his mother moved the family to Arkansas. His mother died when he was ten years old, when he was already working on farms. He moved to Texas six years later.

Career and philanthropy

By the time Fondren was twenty, he translated his knowledge of drilling water wells on farms to the oilfields of

Corsicana, Texas Corsicana is a city in Navarro County, Texas, United States. It is located on Interstate 45, 56 miles northeast of Waco, Texas. The population was 23,770 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Navarro County, and an important Agri-busines ...

. Within a few years he was an expert oil worker and struck out on his own to extract oil from

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 ...

. He was involved with the Texas Oil Boom period. In 1911, Fondren, with

Ross S. Sterling Ross Shaw Sterling (February 11, 1875March 25, 1949) was an American politician who was the 31st Governor of Texas, serving a single two-year term from January 20, 1931, to January 17, 1933. Early years Sterling was born in Anahuac in Chambers ...

and others, founded Humble Oil. It was later acquired by

. The Fondrens established the Fondren Lectures in Religious Thought at Southern Methodist University in 1919. They gave major financial support for the construction of a new building at St. Paul's Methodist Church in 1929. In 1938 they donated nearly half a million dollars to SMU to build the Fondren Library. Walter Fondren also made large contributions to the Methodist Home for Orphans at Waco.

Personal life

Fondren married Ella Florence Cockrum on 14 February 1904.

Death and legacy

Fondren died on January 5, 1939, in

San Antonio, Texas ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...

while attending a Methodist conference. He was first buried in Houston at Glenwood Cemetery, but re-interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery. In 1946, the family granted $1 million to

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

to build the Walter W. Fondren Library. Two years later Ella and the family created the Fondren Foundation. Under Ella's management, the foundation funded new construction for facilities at hospitals and institutions of higher learning.

Early life

Career and philanthropy

Personal life

Death and legacy

References

Further reading