his marriage, Big Howard sold leases on land that proved to have $50,000 in oil beneath it. He promptly took his new wife to Europe for a honeymoon, and returned exactly $50,000 poorer. In 1908, Big Howard turned his ingenuity and his hobby to tinker into good fortune. Current drilling technology was unable to penetrate the thick rock of southwest Texas and oilmen could only extract the surface layers of oil, unable to tap the vast resources that lay far below. Big Howard came up with the idea for a rolling bit, with 166 cutting edges and invented a method to keep the bit lubricated as it tore away at the rock. Later that year, Big Howard produced a model and went into business with his leasing partner, Walter B. Sharp, forming the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company. Rather than sell the bits to oil drillers, Hughes and Sharp decided to lease the bits out on a job basis, for the tidy sum of $30,000 per well. With no competitor able to duplicate this new technology, Sharp- Hughes Tool possessed a profitable monopoly over oil extraction. So quickly was the invention successful that in late 1908, the partners built a factory on a seventy-acre site east of Houston. On 1915, Sharp passed away and Big Howard purchased his shares in the corporation, thus becoming the sole owner. Cash flowed freely into and back out of Sharp-Hughes Tool. Big Howard became a first class socialite, and began to spend increasing amounts of time and money on parties, automobile racing and travel. One of his amusements was to charter a railroad car, fill it with friends, and conduct a rolling party between Texas and California. In the spring of 1921, Mrs. Hughes past away and Big Howard died as abruptly as his wife, willing his three- fourths of his estate to his only son, Howard Robard Hughes. Big Howard left an estate appraised for tax purposed at $871,518. As a less attractive part of his legacy, he left behind $258,000 in unpaid bills, including $2,758 to Brook Brothers Clothiers, $5,502 to Cartier’s in New York, and $3,500 for a grand piano. Howard Hughes Jr. was born on Christmas Eve, 1906 in Houston, Texas. He was commonly known as Sonny, or Little Howard, despite the fact that he was 6’3” by the age of 16. Hughes was the student of 7 different schools, of which he graduated from none, excelling only in mathematics. As a young man, Hughes had a penchant for all things mechanical and was known to spend hours tinkering on various different devices. Little Howard had only one friend, the son his father’s business partner, Dudley Sharp. At the age of 6, Howard Hughes Sr. presented his son with the gift of a workshop, where his son could always be found playing with various bits of wires and pieces of metal. At the age of 11, Little Howard built his own ham radio, and at the age of 13, when he refused the gift of a motorcycle, Hughes built one for himself, taking parts from his father’s steam car. As a graduate of Harvard, Big Howard sought his son to have the same education, and sent his son to boarding school in Massachusetts in fall of 1919. After one year had passed it became apparent that Sonny was not going to succeed in grooming school. Big Howard traveled across the country to collect his son, and they attended a boat race on the way home. After losing a bet to his son on the outcome of the race, Big Howard was forced to grant him one wish. That summer, Sonny took flying lessons with various crop dusters against the wishes of both of his parents. It was here that Hughes would develop his love of aviation. In 1921, oil drilling and prospecting took off in California, and Hughes Sr. relocated to Hollywood, and took his son with him. After a generous donation to the California Institute of Technology, Sonny was able to attend mathematics and engineering courses. In the fall of 1923, Mrs. Hughes passed away, and a little over a year later in January of 1924, Big Howard passed as well. At the age of 17, it would seem that Hughes was not prepared to e

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