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WEBER, HOWARD M.D.
Vol. 5 p. 1813-1814

Probably everyone in Oklahoma and anyone who has any general
information on the oil industry of the United States is familiar with
the Weber pool in Washington County in the Bartlesville district. The
discoverer of this pool and the man who supplied the enterprise and
capital for its development has been an honored resident of
Bartlesville for the past ten years.

Dr. Howard Weber is a physician, is enrolled in the medical
fraternity of Oklahoma, but has never practiced since locating within
this state. Since coming here he has been one of the really big men
in Oklahoma affairs. A fortune has been amassed through his
operations in mining and as an oil producer, and there are few
Oklahomans who control a greater volume of resources both in this
state and elsewhere. Doctor Weber is also a prominent man in the
democratic party of Oklahoma, and is now serving s a member of the
State Central Committee.

Considering his great achievements as an oil man it seems fitting
that he should have been born in the state of Pennsylvania. Doctor
Weber was born in Dempseytown in the Keystone state, October 20,
1862, a son of George K. and Elizabeth (HOMAN) Weber. Both parents
were born in Center County, Pennsylvania, and spent all their lives
in their native state. When quite young they moved to Venango County
in the western part of Pennsylvania, and George K. Weber died there
in February, 1905, at the age of seventy-four. He was a tailor by
trade, but later went into general merchandising. A stanch democrat,
he was much interested in politics, and being a man of simple habits
and plain living acquired a substantial competency. The widowed
mother, who died February 23, 1916, at the age of eighty, represented
people who were among the pioneers of Western Pennsylvania. She was
the ninth in a large family of children, and nearly all of them are
still living, the youngest more than seventy years old. Doctor Weber
was one of ten children, six of whom are still living.

He went into the world with the equipment of a liberal education. He
had attended Allegheny College at Meadville and in 1887 was graduated
in medicine from Long Island Hospital medicine College. For nearly
ten years he applied himself diligently to his chosen work with home
at East Hickory, Pennsylvania. With the resources then at his command
he started his really great work in developing the natural wealth of
the West. In 1896 he went to Colorado, became interested in mining,
and in 1897 took part in the great rush to the Alaska gold fields,
where he remained about a year, being associated with H. H. BREENE of
Bartlesville in that field. In July, 1898, he returned to the states,
and resumed the practice of medicine at Dempseytown and at Oil City,
Pennsylvania.

His interests in the oil industry led him to move to Kansas in 1903,
and he also became an investor in the Oklahoma fields. From
Independence, Kansas, he moved to Bartlesville in 1905, and has since
given all his time to his extensive interests as an oil and gas
operator and to his large mining holdings.

As already stated, Dr. Weber discovered the famous Weber pool east
of Dewey, developed it, and made a large share of his fortune from
that locality. He also discovered the shallow sand pool northeast of
Dewey, and developed that and several other properties in Washington
County. With George B. HARMON, under the name of the Harmon Oil
Company, he developed the Huffsteter & Buff leases half a mile south
of Keifer, finally selling his interests in that property for
$87,000. He then bought 700 acres east of Delaware, was engaged in
development work for a year and sold out to the Prairie Oil an Gas
Company for half a million dollars. Doctor Weber still has some
extensive holdings and leases in this vicinity.

For a year or more there was a lull in his operations as an oil
operator and in that interim he invested heavily in copper mines
north of Bisbee, Arizona. In August, 1914, he purchased from former
Gov. Charles N. HASKELL a half interest in the noted Barney Thlocco
lease, and developed it to its output of about eleven thousand
barrels per day, and it is still producing over two thousand barrels
a day from thirty wells. He also owns 360 acres in the territory
covered by the Weber pool, and operates under lease about as much
more.

As a democrat, Doctor Weber has taken much interest in politics in
every community where he has lived. For the past four years he has
been a member of the state central committee, and served as a
delegate at large to the Baltimore convention, which named Woodrow
Wilson for President. On April 11th, 1916, he was elected a delegate
at large to the Democratic National Convention, which convenes at St.
Louis, June 145h, 1916, to re-nominate Woodrow Wilson for the next
President by a unanimous vote. He was a member of the finance
committee which supplied the funds for the CRUCE campaign in
Oklahoma, and since taking his place on the state committee the
organization has never made any demand upon Washington County which
has not been met. While living in Pennsylvania he was chairman of the
Forest County Democratic Committee. He has also been appointed a
member of the Southern Development Congress.

Doctor Weber is a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of
Elks, and in 1915 took his first degrees in Masonry, and has now gone
by rapid succession as far as he can get in the various degrees and
orders of that ancient fraternity.

With all his material success Doctor Weber finds his greatest pride
in his family and home. In 1885 he married Miss Etta J. CARTER, A
native of Pennsylvania. They have five children: Dr. H.C., who lives
in Bartlesville; Mark U.; Morris Kritzer, who graduated from the
Culver Military Academy in Indiana in June, 1916; Savilla, wife of
W.C. RAYMOND; and Sherwell G., who is now a student in the Culver
Military Academy. All of the children have their home in Bartlesville
and are young people of great promise, and the older ones are already
filing useful places in the world.

SOURCE: Thoburn, Joseph B., A Standard History of Oklahoma, An
Authentic Narrative of its Development, 5 v. (Chicago, New York: The
American Historical Society, 1916).

Transcribed by Carole McAnally, July 18, 1999.