Frank Wesley Sharp (March 18, 1906 – April 2, 1993) was a land developer 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 i ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
, United States who was responsible for creating several large post-
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
housing developments.
Sharp's largest projects included Oak Forest in 1946 and
Sharpstown
Sharpstown is a master-planned community in the Southwest Management District (formerly Greater Sharpstown), Southwest Houston, Texas.Royden Oaks in the early 1970s. Sharp later was a central figure in the Sharpstown scandal, and as a result he was convicted of violating federal banking and securities laws and was sentenced to three years' probation and a $5,000 fine.
Early life
Frank W. Sharp, usually known as simply Frank Sharp, was born on March 18, 1906, on an east Texas farm the near the small town of Crockett in
Houston County, Texas
Houston County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 22,066. Its county seat is Crockett. Houston County was one of 46 entirely dry counties in the state of Texas, until voters in a November ...
, where he lived until he finished high school. Determined to improve his lot in life, he left home at the age of 19 and headed to Houston, where he then settled. He soon got a job as a carpenter's helper during the day, while he began attending a business college at night. These actions started him on the path to becoming a major real estate developer in southeast Texas."Frank W. Sharp Is Dead at 87; Financier in 70's Stock Scandal"
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...
. ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
''. April 5, 1993. Accessed August 13, 2018.
During the 1930s, the Houston area was reasonably well insulated from the grim economic realities of the Great Depression by the completion of the
Houston Ship Channel
The Houston Ship Channel, in Houston, Texas, is part of the Port of Houston, one of the busiest seaports in the world. The channel is the conduit for ocean-going vessels between Houston-area terminals and the Gulf of Mexico, and it serves an in ...
and the rise of the petroleum industry. Sharp reportedly borrowed $150 and began building one house at a time in subdivisions that were beginning to surround the city. Soon, he advanced to building multiple homes in subdivisions like Jacinto City and
Texas City
Texas City is a city in Galveston County in the U.S. state of Texas. Located on the southwest shoreline of Galveston Bay, Texas City is a busy deepwater port on Texas's Gulf Coast, as well as a petroleum-refining and petrochemical-manufacturing ...
Toward the end of World War II, Sharp shrewdly guessed that Houston would continue growing to the northwest, beyond the Garden Oaks subdivision, which architect E. L. Crain had opened in 1937. In 1946, Sharp hired the architectural firm, Wilson, Morris and Crain, and bought of land adjacent to Garden Oaks, where he began constructing prefabricated and preassembled homes on 4780 lots by mid-1947. He named his new subdivision Oak Forest.
Intending to remain involved in all phases of the development, Sharp reorganized his business empire to accomplish that goal. His Frank W. Sharp Enterprises, became an umbrella company that ran four smaller entities: (a) a firm doing concrete and street work; (b) the Douglas Fir Lumber Company, whose two mills in the Northwest prevented Sharp from suffering widespread shortages of lumber; (c) the Oak Forest Corporation to handle development and merchandising; and (d) the Frank W. Sharp Construction Company to handle the building. A separate, but closely connected, company took care of the
millwork
Millwork is historically any wood mill produced decorative materials used in building construction. Stock profiled and patterned millwork building components fabricated by milling at a planing mill can usually be installed with minimal alter ...
.
In July 1948, the popular and well-respected magazine '' Better Homes and Gardens'' (''BH&G'') featured several Oak Forest homes in an article, and said that the proposed investment of $32 million and projected population of 25,000 made Oak Forest, "one of the largest privately financed, single-family home developments in United States or world history." By then, many potential customers had come to think of prefabricated, prebuilt, and planned housing developments as monotonous, and lacking individuality. Sharp adopted a marketing slogan of, "No two houses are alike." The ''BH&G'' article noted that, "among the first 400 homes built in Oak Forest, only two were alike in planning and only two were white in color."
By September 1948 rising costs for materials and overheads were cutting deeply into Sharp's profit margin. He responded by contracting out the actual construction. Sharp's organization could still offer cheaper prices for lumber and office support. In 1953, Sharp announced that he would open Peoples State Bank in Oak Forest. He also planned to open a shopping center on the border between Oak Park and Garden Oaks in May 1953.
Sharpstown
Oak Forest was essentially "built out" by 1955, but Frank Sharp already had a vision for an even greater development. He had already bought an expanse of land at the southwest edge of Houston and near the northeastern limit of
Bellaire, Texas
Bellaire is a city in southwest Harris County, Texas, United States, within the metropolitan area.. Retrieved on January 24, 2010. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city population was 17,202. It is surrounded by the cities of Houston and West ...
. Promotional literature at the time described it as "the biggest real-estate subdivision in the world: 25,000 homes, 100,000 people." Frank named it Sharpstown.
In 1961, Sharp had added Sharpstown State Bank to his holdings, and in 1963, he bought National Bankers Life. By the early 1970s, Sharp had added banking and insurance to his empire. Wanting to assure passage of a bill that would help his banking enterprise (Sharpstown State Bank), he decided to offer unsecured bank loans to a number of key politicians. The politicians who were willingly ensnared in these dealings included then governor of Texas, Preston Smith, Speaker of the House
Gus Mutscher
Gus Franklin Mutscher (November 19, 1932 – February 26, 2023) was an American politician who was Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives
The Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives is the presiding officer of the Texas House of Re ...
, Texas House Representatives W. S. Heatley and Tommy L. Shannon, and Texas Democratic Party chairman, Dr. Elmer Baum. They, in turn agreed to use the loans to buy stock in Sharp's insurance company (National Bankers Life). About the same time, Sharpstown State Bank made unsecured loans to Sharp's son-in-law, W. D. Haden II, who was then trying to buy a controlling interest in Olympic Life Insurance Company of Fort Worth. Concerned by the number and size of the loans Sharpstown bank was making, the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is one of two agencies that supply deposit insurance to depositors in American depository institutions, the other being the National Credit Union Administration, which regulates and insures cr ...
(FDIC) notified bank management that the FDIC might cancel its deposit insurance if it did not immediately cease making these dubious loans.
Though a life-long
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...
, he became a generous donor to
Strake Jesuit College Preparatory
Strake Jesuit College Preparatory (properly referred to as Strake Jesuit or Jesuit but often informally called Strake by students and alumni) is a Jesuit, college-preparatory school for boys, grades 9–12, in the Chinatown area and in the Greate ...
and became the only Protestant to be named as a "founder" within the benefactors of the
Society of Jesus
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
. He was so highly regarded by the pope and other members of the Church hierarchy that he was honored in Rome.Waldran, Martin (August 1, 1971) "The Frank Sharp Affairs: Vast Scandal Stuns Democrats in Texas" ''The New York Times''. Accessed August 21, 2018. During the Sharpstown scandal, Sharp advised Strake Jesuit to buy shares of National Bankers Life at $20–26 per share. ''Time''. February 15, 1971. page 2. The school lost $6,000,000 from his advice.
Sharpstown bribery scandal
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) began uncovering evidence of wrongdoing in 1971, and soon began giving information to the press. On January 18, 1971, the SEC came before the federal court in Dallas to formally charge former Democratic State Attorney General Waggoner Carr, former State Insurance Commissioner John Osorio, Frank Sharp, a number of other defendants, and Sharp's corporations, including the Sharpstown State Bank and National Bankers Life Insurance Corporation, with stock fraud in a scheme hatched by Sharp himself.Kinch, Sam Jr. (June 15, 2010) "Sharpstown Stock Fraud Scandal" '' Handbook of Texas''.
Texas State Historical Association
The Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) is a non-profit educational organization, dedicated to documenting the history of Texas. It was founded in Austin, Texas, on March 2, 1897. , TSHA moved their offices from Austin to the University of ...
. Accessed August 22, 2018. The suit started a run on the bank by its depositors, which was quelled by the FDIC.
Speaker of the House Mutscher and his close associates, Heatley and Shannon, thereafter, frequently called the "Abilene Three" by the press, were charged in an Abilene court with accepting a bribe from Sharp. During the trial, the district attorney revealed that Governor Smith was an
unindicted co-conspirator
In criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime at some time in the future. Criminal law in some countries or for some conspiracies may require that at least one overt act be undertaken in furtherance o ...
. On March 15, 1972, after only 120 minutes of deliberation by the jury, the trial ended with a guilty verdict for each of the three. The next day, Judge J. Neil Daniel sentenced them to five years' probation.
Sharp himself pleaded guilty to all charges. He was fined $5,000 and sentenced to three years' probation for violating federal banking and securities laws.