Memoirs of a Texan: Empire**

Summary

Memoirs of a Texan: Empire is the third in a historic fiction trilogy. Jim Cobb came to Texas after the Civil War. Starting with stolen Union payroll currency, Jim builds a financial empire first with cattle and then cotton, processed wood, shipping, and investments. Other than Patillo Higgins, a wild-eyed promoter, no one believes the Texas Gulf Coast has any oil reserves. That is until Spindletop and then Beaumont becomes a boom town where it seems every drifter and hustler, worldwide, comes to make a fortune. Experience the remarkable drilling of the Lucas Gusher through the lives the principal players - Patillo Higgins, the visionary; Captain Anton Lucas, the mining engineer who knew oil was under the Sour Mound salt dome; and the Hamill Brothers who established several new industry standards in drilling the first Spindletop Field well. As he has done throughout his army and business career, Jim Cobb gathers facts before jumping into the turbulent early Texas oil industry. Over the next twenty years, he builds Anahuac Oil into a major, integrated company by doing business his way. James Tolliver Pearson, the son of a Negro slave, Scipio Morgan who saved Jim Cobb's life in Union prison, attends Fisk University and rooms with W E B Dubois. James Tolliver becomes senior minister of a large Harlem Baptist Church and a leader of the growing Negro equality movement. Charles Savage, a long time associate of Jim Cobb and Andy Blaylock, takes a cattle drive with legendary Charlie Goodnight to the Colorado mines. His purpose is two fold - to get in a last drive before retiring to his Jacksboro, Texas ranch and provide his son, Doss, and Jim Cobb;s stepson, Dennis Gilpin, a taste of the life of a drover. On return, Charles becomes involved in the first Texas oil field near Corsicana and hires Melville Thorn Pike, an eccentric Pennsylvania oil scout, to survey South Texas properties owned by Charles, his brother, Robert, Jim Cobb and Andy Blaylock. The Spanish American War is experienced by Dennis Gilpin, Jim's stepson, who joins the Rough Riders and is nearly killed at Kettle Hill. Since her tragic life threatening experience as a young girl in the Great 1900 Galveston Storm in which her best friend died, Trish Blaylock, Jim Cobb's and Andy Blaylock's granddaugher drifts through life until she joins the American Red Cross in Paris in 1916. Trish buys a Paris restaurant and coverts it to the Cafe Americaine where Parisians and ex-patriot Americans enjoy American food cooked with French quality and American jazz music. Among the visitors to the Cafe Americaine are Trish's cousin, John Blaylock, a Devil Dog US Marine Captain and Joaquin Alaniz, the grandson of one of her grandfathers' business associates and a member of the Lafayette Escadrille. Trish and Joaquin fall in love. Thish becomes pregnant is determined to have her baby outside wedlock until her grandfather, Jim Cobb, comes to Paris as part of the 1919 Peace Conference. Jim convinces his headstrong granddaughter to marry Joaquin and return home where JIm sponsors Joaquin and Larry Savage, Robert Savage's grandson, in a new aviation service business. Throughout his life in Texas, Jim contends with populist politicians who pander and use voters to gain their own ends while neglecting long term public welfare. Texas Redemption is witnessed through Decimus et Ulitimus Barzizi, a Civil War veteran, Houston attorney, and House Leader as Texas comes out from under carpetbagger, scalawag, Republican back to the Democrats who controlled the state before the war. Unfortunately, return to Democratic rule brings back populism. Jim and his associates support good government candidates and, with strong Governors Jim Hogg and Charles Culberson, enjoy a period of effective government until the populists regain control. While serving as an adviser to Hogg and Culberson, Jim becomes acquainted with their campaign manager, Colonet Edward House, who later serves as a powerful aide to President Woodrow Wilson. Through House, Jim serves as a Wilson Texas delegate to the 1912 Democratic Convention.