Ernest Whitworth Marland
2014.12.23
E.W. Marland (1874–1941) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and completed law school by age 19. Eventually he invested in the booming Pennsylvania oil industry and became a multi-millionaire at 33; but the wealth quickly vanished in the Panic of 1907.
He and his first wife Virginia then moved to Ponca City, Oklahoma, where new oil discoveries were being developed. After settling in, he founded the 101 Ranch Oil Company and rebuilt his fortune. In 1920, when he consolidated everything into Marland Oil Company, he was worth about $85,000,000 (around one billion today) and was said to control a tenth of the world’s oil production. Despite this, the company suffered cash-flow problems almost from the start, and Marland turned to J.P. Morgan bank for financial backing.
In 1928, J.P. Morgan Jr. initiated a hostile takeover of Marland Oil and merged it with Continental Oil and others to become Conoco. E.W. Marland was effectively forced to resign, and that along with the stock market crash decimated his great fortune a second time.
He represented Oklahoma as a U.S. Congressman for one term, then became the tenth Governor of Oklahoma in 1934.
The Marland Grand Home
The Marlands first lived in the Arcade Hotel in Ponca City. In 1916 they moved into what is now called the Marland Grand Home or sometimes Marland–Paris Mansion, designed by Solomon Layton in Italian Renaissance Revival style. The 22-room house is 16,500 square feet and included luxuries such as the first indoor swimming pool in Oklahoma, central vacuum system, and automatic dishwasher.
There were originally eight acres of formal gardens to the east and a nine-hole golf course across the street.
Apparently it wasn’t enough. In 1925, construction began on an even more extravagant estate.
Osteology II