The prototype for the hard-drinking, barroom-brawling Texas
oilman, Glenn McCarthy was often called the “king of the
wildcatters” and other names not as complimentary. He discovered
11 oil fields and expanded others. In 1949 he built the $21
million Shamrock Hotel in Houston, spending $1 million for the
gaudy party when it opened, but in 1955 lost it to the Hilton
chain. He was the inspiration for the character Jett Rink in
Edna Ferber’s Texas novel Giant.