Howard Robard Hughes Sr. (September 9, 1869 – January 14, 1924) was an American businessman and inventor who founded the
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 ...
. He invented the "Sharp–Hughes"
two-cone rotary 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. ...
. Hughes was the father and namesake of
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American Aerospace engineering, aerospace engineer, business magnate, film producer, and investor. He was The World's Billionaires, one of the richest and most influential peo ...
(Howard Robard Hughes Jr.) the American business tycoon and founder of
Hughes Aircraft
The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace company, aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California, as a division of the Hughes Tool Company. The company produced the Hughes ...
.
Early life and education
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 off ...
, the son of Jean Amelia (
née
The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...
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, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, military officer, and music composer. He was the brother of Howard R. Hughes Sr. and uncle of billionaire How ...
, 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 in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones.
An entreprene ...
, trying and failing at many things before eventually finding success.
After spending his childhood and early adulthood in
Keokuk,
Iowa
Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...
; he lived in various places such as
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, where he was a member of the
Harvard Club The Harvard Club is a private social club for alumni and associates of Harvard University with chapters all over the world.
Notable chapters include:
* Harvard Club of Boston
* Harvard Club of New York
* Harvard Club of Washington DC
The Harvard ...
;
Denver
Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...
;
Joplin, Missouri
Joplin is a city in Jasper County, Missouri, Jasper and Newton County, Missouri, Newton counties in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Missouri. The bulk of the city is in Jasper County, while the southern portion is in Newton County. J ...
; and
Beaumont, Texas
Beaumont is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat of Jefferson County, Texas, Jefferson County, within the Beaumont–Port Arthur metropolitan area, located in Southeast Texas on the Neches River about east of Houston (city ...
, prior to finally settling in
Houston
Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...
; where his son Howard Jr. was born.
Hughes Sr. was educated at
Missouri Military Academy
The Missouri Military Academy (MMA) is a Private school, private University-preparatory school, preparatory school in Mexico, Missouri, United States. Established in 1889; the academy is a Selective school, selective, Single-sex education, all ...
, in
Mexico
Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...
, Missouri. He then entered
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
in 1893, dropping out the next year.
Career
Hughes Sr. married Allene Stone Gano, on June 24, 1904, in
Dallas County, Texas
Dallas County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 2,613,539, and was estimated to be 2,656,028 in 2024, making it the List of counties in Texas, second-most populo ...
, 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 Spindlet ...
oil discovery in Texas, as a result of which he began devoting his full time to the oil business. In 1906, Hughes began experiments of ways to replace the state of the art technology at that time, the fishtail bit. (See image)
In 1908, he and
Walter Benona Sharp, his business partner, built a two-cone drill bit model using wood.
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 sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...
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 m ...
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 broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
show ''
History Detectives
''History Detectives'' was a documentary television series on PBS. It featured investigations made by members of a small team of researchers to identify and/or authenticate items which may have historical significance or connections to important h ...
'', several other people and companies had produced similar drill bits years earlier. In its initial tests at
Goose Creek Oil Field
The Goose Creek Oil Field is a large oil field in Baytown, Texas, on Galveston Bay. Discovered in 1903, and reaching maximum production in 1918 after a series of spectacular blowout (well drilling), gushers, it was one of the fields that contrib ...
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 ter ...
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.
During WWI, he invented a
tunnel boring machine
A tunnel boring machine (TBM), also known as a "mole" or a "worm", is a machine used to excavate tunnels. TBMs are an alternative to drilling and blasting methods and "hand mining", allowing more rapid excavation through hard rock, wet or dry so ...
for soldiers to create tunnels from their trenches.
He co-founded the
Sharp-Hughes Tool Company with
Walter Benona Sharp 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
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 ...
, as it was renamed, were August 10, 1909, patents for his dual-cone rotary drill bit. The fees for
licensing
A license (American English) or licence ( Commonwealth English) 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 par ...
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 Geographic South Pole was led by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. He and four other crew members made it to the geographical south pole on 14 December 1911, which would prove to be five weeks ahea ...
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 was long credited as being ...
's North Pole expeditions.
Awards and accolades
100 years after the Hughes drill bit had been patented, 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 edu ...
(ASME) designated the technology a
Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark on August 10, 2009.
Patents
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 (air embolism, gas embolism), amniotic ...
at his company's offices on the fifth floor of the
Humble Oil Building 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 for full control 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. Although these dates have been recorded as the official period of emp ...
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 or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...
,
aviation
Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' include fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air aircraft such as h ...
, and the casino industry in
Las Vegas
Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...
, 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
Reuben Carlton "Carl" Baker, Sr.California Death Records. - California Department of Health Services Office of Health Information and Research. (July 18, 1872 – September 29, 1957) was an American oil industry drilling pioneer. He established B ...
to form
Baker Hughes
Baker Hughes Company is an American global energy technology company co-headquartered in Houston, Texas and London, UK. As one of the world's largest oil field services, industrial and energy technology companies, it provides products and serv ...
, a large oilfield services company still based in Houston.
Texas Monthly: Read Me. Texas
''Texas Monthly
''Texas Monthly'' (stylized as ''TexasMonthly'') is a monthly American magazine headquartered in Downtown Austin, Texas. Founded in 1973 by Michael R. Levy, ''Texas Monthly'' chronicles life in contemporary Texas, writing on politics, the Natura ...
''
See also
* List of people from Missouri
The following are people who were either born, raised, or have lived for a significant period of time in the U.S. state of Missouri.
Art and literature
* Helen Andelin (1920–2009), author of ''Fascinating Womanhood''
* Maya Angelou ( ...
References
External links
*
Howard R. Hughes Sr.
at the ''Handbook of Texas
The Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) is an American nonprofit educational and research organization dedicated to documenting the history of Texas. It was founded in Austin, Texas, United States, on March 2, 1897. In November 2008, the ...
''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Howard R. Sr.
1869 births
1924 deaths
American businesspeople in the oil industry
American chief executives of manufacturing companies
American investors
Inventors from Texas
American manufacturing businesspeople
Burials at Glenwood Cemetery (Houston, Texas)
Businesspeople from Missouri
Harvard University alumni
Iowa State University alumni
Missouri Military Academy alumni
People from Lancaster, Missouri
Hughes family (United States)