Howard Hughes

16 Pages 3910 Words

B. Sharp, forming the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company. Rather than sell the bits to oil drillers, Hughes and Sharp decided to lease the bits out on a job basis, for the tidy sum of $30,000 per well. With no competitor able to duplicate this new technology, Sharp- Hughes Tool possessed a profitable monopoly over oil extraction. So quickly was the invention successful that in late 1908, the partners built a factory on a seventy-acre site east of Houston. On 1915, Sharp passed away and Big Howard purchased his shares in the corporation, thus becoming the sole owner. Cash flowed freely into and back out of Sharp-Hughes Tool. Big Howard became a first class socialite, and began to spend increasing amounts of time and money on parties, automobile racing and travel. One of his amusements was to charter a railroad car, fill it with friends, and conduct a rolling party between Texas and California. In the spring of 1921, Mrs. Hughes past away and Big Howard died as abruptly as his wife, willing his three- fourths of his estate to his only son, Howard Robard Hughes. Big Howard left an estate appraised for tax purposed at $871,518. As a less attractive part of his legacy, he left behind $258,000 in unpaid bills, including $2,758 to Brook Brothers Clothiers, $5,502 to Cartier’s in New York, and $3,500 for a grand piano. Howard Hughes Jr. was born on Christmas Eve, 1906 in Houston, Texas. He was commonly known as Sonny, or Little Howard, despite the fact that he was 6’3” by the age of 16. Hughes was the student of 7 different schools, of which he graduated from none, excelling only in mathematics. As a young man, Hughes had a penchant for all things mechanical and was known to spend hours tinkering on various different devices. Little Howard had only one friend, the son his father’s business partner, Dudley Sharp. At the age of 6, Howard Hughes Sr. presented his son with the gift of a workshop, where his son could always be found playing with vari...