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Success Story
Sinclair
Founded Career on Brashness and Daring
 Sinclair
first sold lumber for oil derricks, buying and selling leases on the
side. By train and buggy he ranged southeast Kansas and the Osage
Indian territory now part of Oklahoma, sniffing likely drilling
prospects, reselling for peanut profits. His zeal and
"luck" attracted such moneymen as Chicago meat packer J.
M. Cudahy and his field manager John F. Overfield, the Pittsburgh
capitalist Theodore Barnsdall, and James F. O'Neill, president of
the Prairie Oil Company.
Investors
Amassed Quick Dividends
For his many sponsors, the young Sinclair organized small companies
around single leases, with himself as salaried manager and usually
treasurer; for his creative work he took a few shares of stock in
each enterprise. When such leases yielded oil--as they did with
uncanny frequency--the promoters sold quickly, reinvesting in new
wildcat ventures flushed by Sinclair. The rich speculators needed a
bird dog, and Harry Sinclair qualified; almost unfailingly he
pointed lucrative ground. His managerial talents were also
developing; no matter how small his investment was in any company,
he insisted upon absolute control of its affairs, even though his
salary for supervision was often a paltry $75 a month. With control,
he could buy and sell as opportunity offered momentary advantage in
the precariously shifting fortunes of the oil fields.
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