Editing H. L. Hunt (section)

==Life==
Hunt was born near [[Ramsey, Illinois|Ramsey]] in [[Carson Township, Fayette County, Illinois|Carson Township, Illinois]], the youngest of eight children.<ref name=sptms/> He was named after his father, Haroldson Lafayette Hunt, who was a prosperous farmer-entrepreneur. His mother was Ella Rose (Myers) Hunt. His grandfather, Waddy Hunt, was a Confederate cavalry officer for the [[27th Arkansas Infantry Regiment]] during the [[American Civil War]] and was murdered by [[Quantrill's Raiders]] in 1864, after being mistaken for a Union sympathizer.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1970-03-05 |title=Waddy Thorpe Hunt request for family information by HL Hunt |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-tennessean-waddy-thorpe-hunt-request/54655604/ |access-date=2025-03-26 |work=The Tennessean |pages=66}}</ref>

H. L. Hunt Jr. was [[homeschooling|homeschooled]]. He did not go to elementary school or to high school. Later, he said that education is an obstacle to making money.<ref>Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/Y-QmBubdaik Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20211026211248/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-QmBubdaik Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-QmBubdaik|title=Владыки без масок. Игрок на Олимпе|date=February 15, 2015 |access-date=October 26, 2021|publisher=YouTube}}{{cbignore}}</ref> As a teenager, Hunt traveled to different places before he settled in [[Arkansas]], where he was running a [[cotton plantation]] by 1912. He had a reputation as a math prodigy and was a gambler. Hunt is reported in internal FBI memoranda to have run [[prostitution]] activities in Arkansas and, later in the 1950s, a private horse racing and gambling [[bookmaking]] operation from his office in Dallas.<ref>{{cite web |title=FOIA: Hunt, H.L.-HQ-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/foia_Hunt_H.L.-HQ-2/page/n15/mode/2up?view=theater |website=Archive.org |access-date=10 December 2023}}</ref>

It was said that after his cotton plantation was flooded, he turned his last $100 into more than $100,000 after he had gambled in [[New Orleans]]. With his winnings, he purchased oil properties in [[El Dorado, Arkansas|El Dorado]] southeast of [[Texarkana, Arkansas]]. He was generous to his employees, who in turn were loyal to him by informing him of rumors of a massive oil field to the south, in East Texas. In negotiations over cheese and crackers, at the [[Adolphus Hotel]] in [[Dallas]], with the wild-catter who discovered the [[East Texas Oil Field]], [[Columbus Marion Joiner|Columbus Marion "Dad" Joiner]], Hunt secured title to what was the largest known oil deposit in the world. Hunt had agreed to pay Joiner $1,000,000 and to protect him from liability for his many fraudulent transactions surrounding the property. 

In 1957, ''[[Fortune (magazine)|Fortune]]'' estimated that Hunt had a fortune of $400–700 million,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/|title=Seven Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount - 1790 to Present|website=Measuringworth.com|access-date=October 26, 2021}}</ref> and was one of the eight [[Wealthiest Americans (1957)|richest people]] in the United States. [[J. Paul Getty]], who was considered to be the richest private citizen in the world, said of Hunt, "In terms of extraordinary, independent wealth, there is only one man—H. L. Hunt."<ref>{{cite news|last=Lohr|first=Steve|title=Books of the Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/20/books/books-of-the-times-books-of-the-times.html|access-date=June 13, 2012|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=August 20, 1981}}</ref>