Frank Phillips (oil industrialist)

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, Nebraska where his parents Lucinda and Lewis Franklin Phillips, the county's first magistrate, had a farm. The infant 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 farm was. The Phillips quickly decided to pack up, and they moved the family to a small farm in rural southwest Iowa. Frank had ten siblings, including two brothers with whom he later went into business. One notible family member is his sibling Waite Phillips, who founded the Philmont Scout Ranch.

A few years later, the Phillips boy began his first entrepreneurial venture, hiring out to area farmers to dig potatoes for 10 cents a day (after completing his chores at home). At age 14, Phillips persuaded a barber in nearby Creston, Iowa, to take him on as an apprentice. Ten years later, Phillips owned all three barber shops in Creston. One of his barber shops was in the basement of a bank in Creston.

On February 18, 1897 Phillips married Jane Gibson, daughter of the bank president John Gibson, in Creston. They had one son, John Gibson Phillips. Later they adopted two daughters, orphaned sisters whom they named Mary Francis and Sara Jane Phillips.

The bank's president, John Gibson, had considered Phillips an up-and-coming entrepreneur for some time. Shortly after Phillips married Jane Gibson, her father asked Phillips to join him in the bond business. Phillips began selling bonds in the New England states and the Chicago area.

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