Sid W. Richardson

Sid Williams Richardson
Born (1891-05-25)May 25, 1891
Athens, Texas
Died September 30, 1959(1959-09-30) (aged 68)
St Joseph's Island, Texas
Resting place Athens, Texas[1]
Education Baylor University and Simmons College
Occupation Businessman and philanthropist
Relatives Perry Richardson Bass (nephew)
Ed Bass (great-nephew)
Robert Bass (great-nephew)
Sid Bass (great-nephew)
Hyatt Bass (great-grandniece)

Sid Williams Richardson (May 25, 1891 - September 30, 1959) was a Texas businessman and philanthropist known for his association with the city of Fort Worth.[1]

Biography

A native of Athens in east Texas, Richardson attended Baylor University and Simmons College from 1910 to 1912. With borrowed money, he and a business partner, Clint Murchison, Sr., amassed $1 million in the oil business in 1919-1920, but then watched their fortunes wane with the oil market, until business again boomed in 1933.

Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Richardson met General Dwight Eisenhower on a train. Within six months, Eisenhower was promoted to head of the US Army. Richardson bought White House influence primarily by donating money to Elliot Roosevelt, the hapless son of President Roosevelt, and by inviting the president on fishing trips to the Gulf of Mexico. After the war, Richardson financed Eisenhower's presidential campaigns and persuaded the retired general to run for office. Part of his persuasion included buying a farm for Eisenhower at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Richardson was president of Sid Richardson Gasoline Co. in Kermit, Sid Richardson Carbon Company in Odessa, and Sid W. Richardson Inc., in Fort Worth, and was a partner in Fort Worth-based Richardson and Bass Oil Producers. [1]

He began ranching in the 1930s and developed a love of Western art, particularly that of Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell. He built one of the largest private collections of these artists' work, which opened to the public as the Sid Richardson Collection of Western Art in 1982. After a yearlong renovation, it reopened as the Sid Richardson Museum in 2006.

Richardson had already given numerous scholarships and gifts to local organizations when friend Amon G. Carter persuaded him to establish the Sid W. Richardson Foundation in 1947. The foundation awards grants to Texas organizations in the areas of education, health, human services, and cultural institutions; grants in the latter two categories are restricted to groups in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex area. The foundation's Fort Worth headquarters shares a building with the Sid Richardson Museum.

Upon his death aged 68 in 1959, Richardson, a bachelor, bequeathed a large portion of his estate to his foundation, and left several million dollars to his nephew-partner, Perry Richardson Bass. Richardson named John B. Connally, the future Texas governor, as co-executor of the estate, a designation which provided Connally with steady income for years thereafter.

He also bought and donated land for the Sid Richardson Boy Scout Camp.

Institutions named for Richardson

References

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