Frank Phillips, born on November 28, 1873, in Scotia, Nebraska, was the eldest of ten children in a farming family. In 1874, his family relocated to Iowa due to a grasshopper infestation. As a boy, Phillips experienced rural life’s toil, poverty, and frustrations. While on the farm, he earned his first wages by digging potatoes for ten cents a day. At 14, Phillips left the farm to apprentice as a barber in Creston, Iowa, eventually owning two barbershops. His entrepreneurial spirit led him to create and sell “Mountain Sage,” a tonic he marketed as a baldness cure, but he was destined to become an Oklahoma oilman, a pioneer in the industry.
Frank Phillips (2012.201.B1019.0418, Oklahoma Publishing Company Photography Collection, OHS).
In 1903, Phillips visited Bartlesville, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), drawn by the burgeoning oil industry. By 1905, he and his younger brother, L.E. Phillips, founded the Anchor Oil & Gas Company. Operating on borrowed money and with only enough funding left for one more attempt, their next gamble paid off. Their first successful well, the Anna Anderson Number One, struck oil on September 6, 1905, leading to a remarkable streak of 80 consecutive producing wells.
In 1917, the Phillips brothers consolidated their ventures to form Phillips Petroleum Company, with assets of $3 million and 27 employees. Under Frank’s leadership, the company expanded into a fully integrated oil enterprise, encompassing production, refining, and marketing. He served as president until 1939 and then as chairman of the board until his retirement in 1949.
Beyond his business achievements, Phillips was a philanthropist and aviation enthusiast, supporting notable flights such as Art Goebel’s transpacific journey from Hawaii and Wiley Post’s stratospheric test flights.
In 1949, Phillips resigned from active management of Phillips Petroleum. He died on August 23, 1950, while vacationing in Atlantic City, New Jersey. At the time of his death, Phillips Petroleum had more than seventeen thousand employees and approximately $625 million in assets. He was interred at his Woolaroc ranch, fourteen miles southwest of Bartlesville.
Frank Phillips’s legacy as a pioneering oilman and philanthropist continues to influence the industry and the state of Oklahoma. His life exemplifies the impact of vision, perseverance, and innovation in shaping modern enterprise.
