Waite Phillips - Career

Career

Waite returned home to Iowa and, after six months of college studies, launched into an active business career. Under the guidance and help of his elder brothers, Frank and L.E. Phillips, he moved from a short period of coal mining in Iowa to petroleum operations in 1906, centered around Bartlesville, Oklahoma. His brothers created the business which became known as Phillips Petroleum Company.

In 1914 Phillips sold his oil interests to his elder brothers. He started out on his own as an individual oil producer, refiner and marketer. His fully integrated and extensive oil operations lasted almost 40 years. After 1918, he had his headquarters in Tulsa, Oklahoma. While in Tulsa, Phillips built several office complexes, such as the Philtower and Philcade. He also had a mansion built, the 72-room Italian Renaissance-style Villa Philbrook. In 1938 during the Great Depression, Phillips donated his immense home to the city of Tulsa, which adapted it into the Philbrook Museum of Art. Each of these buildings has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In addition to his oil business, Phillips was actively engaged in banking, city real estate developments and the operation of ranches in several Rocky Mountain regions. His first choice of ranches was the UU near Cimarron, New Mexico, acquired in 1922. After disposing of his other ranches, he developed the 300,000-acre (1,200 km2) UU Ranch into diversified farming and livestock operations. Waite built the Villa Philmonte as his summer house. On the ranch, he also built mountain trails, a hunting lodge and a fishing lodge, all of which he found to be restful retreats from business pressures in Tulsa.