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US patent drawing of the first Hughes cone bit, granted in August, 1909.
US patent drawing of the first Hughes cone bit, granted in August, 1909.
Before he was an inventor, Howard Hughes was a lawyer where he developed an understanding of the value of patents. By 1900 he was a partner in a lead and zinc mine in Joplin, Missouri where he was first exposed to the technology of drilling in rock. Then, when news of the Spindletop strike broke in 1901, he moved to Texas and became an oilman. By the time he got to Goose Creek, Hughes had already drilled in the Spindletop, Sour Lake, Humble, and Louisiana fields.
In 1905 Hughes was one of a party of drillers represented by R.C. Briggs who purchased a 43-acre tract from Walter Tabb on the bay east of Goose Creek. A few months later, Briggs filed a partition deed and Hughes wound up with a 7.5 acre tract. This was located where the Oasis filling station stands at the corner of old Highway 146 and Lee Drive. A few months after that, in November 1906, he sold his 7.5 acres to Producers Oil Company where Walter B. Sharp was President. Hughes had worked with Sharp, as well as his brother, Jim Sharp, on several wells over the years, and it was about this time that Hughes started working on the 2-cone rock bit. The knowledge he had gained in the mining business undoubtedly also helped him understand that chipping rather than scraping was a more efficient means of drilling in rock. But it seems that the bit was not exactly his brainchild. New inventions are usually based on something similar that came before and, in fact, versions of roller bits had already been patented and many not patented. A roller bit using a different design but similar idea had been patented by Peter Sweeney in 1866. Hughes could also have been exposed to several other designs of rock drill bits using conical rollers that had been patented over the years. In a 1953 interview, Granville Humason claimed that the bit was actually his invention and Hughes purchased the idea in a bar for $150. There may have been something in his claim, because Humason went on to patent several other drill bits based on the same idea of crushing, rather than scraping, the rock. Humason’s company, the Reed Roller Bit Company, had a running legal battle with Hughes for several years. Other men claimed the idea as well. In a family legend, Oliver W. “Curley” Fayle claimed to have made the first prototype in the Fayle Machine Shop in Mexia, Texas before he moved to Goose Creek. He said Hughes knew it had not been patented and borrowed the bit but never returned it. The truth will never be known but Fayle held bitter feelings toward Hughes the rest of his life.
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