Cullinan, John Eldest son of Charles Cullinan, of Bansha, Co. Tipperary; b. 1858; M.P. (N.) S.Tipperary 1900-18: Bansha, Co. Tipperary.Source: Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes 49th Edition, (London: Kelly's Directories, 1923).

Cullinan, Joseph Stephen (Dec. 31, 1860-Mar. 11, 1937), oil man and corporation executive, was born at Sharon, Pa., of Irish parents who had emigrated from County Clare, the eldest son and second of eight children of John Francis and Mary (Considine) Cullinan. His father, an oil-field worker, was often hard pressed financially, and young Cullinan left public school at the age of twelve to help support the family. Growing up at Oil Creek, Pa., to which his parents moved when he was eight, he naturally drifted into oil-field work, joining the Standard Oil Company in 1882. The firm was still small, and "Buckskin Joe" got first-hand experience in drilling, laying pipe lines, assembling tank "farms," and constructing refineries. He had risen to be manager of its natural gas interests when he resigned in 1896 to establish his own business, the Petroleum Iron Works at Washington, Pa., to manufacture oil tanks.

Cullinan's reputation was such that upon the discovery of oil at Corsicana, Texas, he was asked by city officials to survey this field's potentialities. There, with the financial backing of Calvin N. Payne and Henry Clay Folger [q.v.], Standard Oil officials, he established in 1897 the first pipe line and refining company in Texas, J.S. Cullinan & Company, predecessor of the Magnolia Petroleum Company. Though primarily a producer of illuminating oil, in 1898 he and his brother, Dr. M.P. Cullinan, demonstrated the practicality of oil as a locomotive fuel on a St. Louis & Southwestern Railroad engine. Other experiments provided the basis for later methods of asphaltic and bitulithic paving. The discovery of oil in the famous Spindletop field at Beaumont, Texas, in January 1901 presented greater opportunities, and Cullinan sold out at Corsicana to go to Beaumont, where a few weeks later he formed, on paper, a $50,000 corporation, the Texas Fuel Company, to refine and market the new-found oil. He also organized the Producers Oil Company, based on thirteen acres at Spindletop, to give the first company an assured source of supply. The Texas Fuel Company went into operation in January 1902, but proved too small, and its assets were transferred in March to a new corporation, the Texas Company, capitalized at $3,000,000.

This new company's only advantage over its 200 rivals at Spindletop was Cullinan's reputation as a successful oil man. Under his presidency, when competitors were failing by the score, Texaco, as the company was called, began expanding. After only eight months it had invested $652,040 and was committed to additional heavy outlays. The Company was saved from the effects of the sudden failure of Spindletop production only by the timely Sour Lake discovery and Cullinan's ability to raise an additional $1,000,000 to take up an option there. Each succeeding major strike found Cullinan strategically located. His willingness to gamble was well illustrated by his decision to risk $6,000,000 on a pipe line from the great Oklahoma Glen Pool at a time then the company's assets were less than $8,000,000.

The Texas Company was virtually a one-man show, with Cullinan running it from the field. When eastern directors secured approval of the board to move the executive headquarters from Texas to New York, he considered it a violation of a tacit understanding and resigned (Nov. 25, 1913). By this time Texaco had become a major concern with over four percent of the nation's production, five refineries, a fleet of freight cars and ocean-going tankers, a capitalization of $30,000,000, and assets in excess of $60,000,000.

Oil still remained Cullinan's primary pre-occupation, and in May 1914 he formed the Farmers Oil Company, later consolidated with other interests in 1916 into a holding company, the American Republics Corporation. The latter, originally capitalized at $30,000, had assets by 1927 of approximately $74,000,000 and at its height controlled almost two million acres of oil land and some twenty subsidiary companies. Nevertheless, Cullinan still had found time to become president of the Galena-Signal Oil Company in 1919.

But difficulties lay ahead. In 1927, in a bitter fight, a powerful group of stockholders unsuccessfully challenged his leadership of the American Republics Corporation. Also, Cullinan, like others, sought an answer to the industry's massive overproduction problem in 1928. He proposed, at various times, several solutions: federal control under the natural defense or commercial clauses of the Constitution; the appointment of Herbert Hoover or some other suitable person as an oil "czar"; and a program to coordinate the efforts of the numerous control agencies. Although he had resigned his presidency to his son in February 1928, he became one of two receivers when the American Republics Corporation was placed in receivership on Mar. 16, 1932, and when this was lifted, on Mar. 23, 1934, he became president again until March 1936.

A tall, handsome man, daring and restless, yet inspiring in confidence, Cullinan left the mark of his versatility and genius in three major oil companies which he created: Texas, Magnolia and American Republics. Of diverse interests, he participated in about twenty-five organizations, exclusive of social clubs. He held high offices in such varied groups as the National Rivers and Harbours Congress, the American Liberty League, and the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Commission. He was one of the original members of the Food Administration, headed by Herbert Hoover, in 1917, thus beginning a long friendship, and served with him on the Commission for Relief in Belgium Education Foundation from 1920 until his death.

On April 14, 1891, Cullinan married Lucie Halm of Lima, Ohio, by whom he had five children: John Halm, Craig Francis, Nina Jane, Margaret Anna, and Mary Catherine. His life illustrated his philosophy: "Doubts and fears are man's worst enemies. As long as a man doesn't know he can't do it, he can go ahead and do anything." He died of pneumonia in Palo Alto, Calif., where he had gone to visit Hoover, and was buried in Glenwood Cemetery, Houston, Texas.

[Personal information furnished by Miss Nina Cullinan and James H. Durbin of Houston, Texas. Other sources include Marquis James, The Texaco Story (1953); Who's Who in America, various issues, 1916-1937, including obituary, Mar. 12, 1937; Magnolia Oil News, Founder't Number, Apr. 1931; C.C. Rister, Oil! Titan of the Southwest (1949); J.A. Clark and M.T. Habouty, Spindletop (1952); obit. notices in oil trade jours. and Texas newspapers; and J.S. Cullinan, "Government Has Ready Means of