The Texas Gulf Historical and Biographical Record, Volume 5, Number 1, November 1969 Page: 19
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JOHN HENRY KIRBY - MAN AND LEGEND 19
trust laws.113 Such a doubt had been suggested to Calhoun by an official of
Maryland Trust Company, acting in capacity of advisor to Thomas H. Franklin,
representative of the trust company, prior to final contract between Calhoun
and Kirby.1"4 Calhoun had been devising ways to capitalize the venture be-
tween his meetings and agreements with Kirby.115 But Kirby by July 5 was
able to reassure Calhoun, by wire from Houston, that the attorney general of
Texas had passed on the acceptability of the double plan of incorporation.116
Subscription applications to the preferred stock in the oil company, with
a prospectus, were circulated.117 Of the total $10,000,000 issue, $7,500,000
was to be sold at six per cent, the remainder to be held in the treasury.118 The
Maryland Trust Company, after the oil company's incorporation, would issue
an additional $11,000,000 in timber certificates.'19 Thus the oil company would
acquire its title to the 8-billion-board-feet timberlands. Calhoun, thinking to
make capital of an eye-catching name, suggested for his half of the twin
enterprise, the title The Sam Houston Oil Company of Texas.120 Kirby, with a
readier appreciation of history's short-lived memory, aware that the fame of
localities more often outlived that of their eponymous honorees, preferred simply
the name Houston Oil Company, in tribute to his adopted city whose fame
was even then beginning to merge with, if not eclipse, that of its titulary hero.
On July 5, 1901, the Houston Oil Company of Texas received its charter.
It bore the signatures as sponsors, in accordance with Texas law, of Kentucky-
born Houston lawyer, Joe Henry Eagle, of Benjamin Franklin Bonner, and of
S. Bronson Cooper. Of the same date was the Kirby Lumber Company charter,
showing as sponsors John Henry Kirby, Webb W. Wilson (former Assistant
General Manager of the Gulf, Beaumont & K.C. Railway), and James L. Kirby,
then a resident of Hardin County.121 The authorized capitalization of the oil
company was $30,000,000, the largest such yet granted to a Texas corporation;
that of the Kirby Lumber Company, $10,000,000. A cordial mutuality would
be the touchstone to the success of the joint venture. To Calhoun and to Kirby
should redound the eventual credit for success, or on them devolve the blame
for the possible failure, of the undertaking. The tight contract with Kirby,
solely, was assigned with the corporate assent of the Houston Oil Company to
the lumber company, and it, the Kirby Lumber Company, was by expressed
terms bound by the same restrictions which the contract imposed on the
Houston Oil Company.122
113Ibid.
114Ibid.
115Ibid.
116Ibid.
117Ibid.
118Ibid.
119American Lumberman, November 22, 1902, pp. 45-46.
120"Texas' Great Industrial Banquet," The Lumber Trade Journal, November 15,
1901, p. 15.
121State of Texas, Office of the Secretary of State. Archives of TGHS.
122American Lumberman, November 22, 1902, p. 45.
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Texas Gulf Historical Society. The Texas Gulf Historical and Biographical Record, Volume 5, Number 1, November 1969, periodical, November 1969; Beaumont, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1433638/m1/23/: accessed August 15, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Texas Gulf Historical Society.