Frank Phillips (November 28 , 1873 – August 23, 1950) founded Phillips Petroleum
in Bartlesville, Oklahoma (marketed as Phillips 66) in 1917, along with his brother,
Lee Eldas "L.E." Phillips, Sr. In 2002, Phillips Petroleum merged with Conoco
Oil Company and became ConocoPhillips.
Frank Phillips was born
in Scotia, Greeley County, Nebraska and died in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Young
Frank was still in his crib in July 1874, when swarms of grasshoppers
descended on Nebraska, cutting a 100-mile (160 km) by 300-mile (480 km) swath
and devastating crops throughout the area. The devastation eventually extended
to include Greeley County, where the Phillips family had a farm outside Scotia.
Phillips' parents, Judge Lewis Franklin Phillips, the county's first magistrate,
and his wife Lucinda packed up their belongings and moved with young Frank
to a small farm in rural southwest Iowa.
A few years later, young
Frank began his first entrepreneurial venture, hiring out to area farmers to dig
potatoes (after completing his chores) for 10 cents a day. At age 14, Phillips
persuaded a barber in nearby Creston, Iowa, to take him in as an apprentice.
Ten years later Phillips owned all three barber shops in Creston.
One
of his barber shops was in the basement of bank in Creston. The bank's president,
John Gibson, had considered Phillips an up-and-coming entrepreneur for some
time. Shortly after Phillips married Gibson's daughter, Jane, on February 18,
1897, Gibson asked Phillips to join him in the bond business. Phillips began selling
bonds in the New England states and the Chicago area. |
