Emerson Francis Woodward

Who was Emerson Francis Woodward?

Emerson Francis Woodward was an oilman who co-founded the Yount-Lee Oil Company which made a major discovery at the Spindletop field near Beaumont, Texas. In 1935, Woodward and partners sold the company to Standard Oil & Gas for $46 million.

He was born at Podunk, New York to William W. and Ida May LaGrange Woodward. Because his father made his living in the oil business in its earliest days at Titusville, Pennsylvania, Emerson wanted to follow in his footsteps. After receiving an early education in the Goodwill Hill public schools in Pennsylvania, Woodward, at the age of eleven, went to work in the oil fields, and before the end of his career, he would be affiliated with the industry in various other states, including Oklahoma, Ohio, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. He married Bessie McGarry in 1901 at her hometown of Woodsfield, Ohio. The couple had only one child, a son, Harley E. Woodward, who died at age age 34 when the private plane he was in crashed into Rich Mountain, Arkansas.

The Producers Oil Company employed Emerson Woodward for eleven years, and during this stretch, he met his lifelong associate, Thomas Peter Lee, who worked for the same firm. Woodward advanced quickly within the organization and received a promotion to assistant superintendent of its southern division, which encompassed the area from New Orleans to El Paso. Later, he helped organize the Farmers Petroleum Company, held the position of superintendent, and in 1921 became president of the Republic Production Company, a subsidiary of American Republics Corporation. With the formation of the Yount-Lee Oil Company, Woodward eventually became one of its largest stockholders.