Oil Investments

Beginning in 1917, Mrs. Caperton and the Burnam family became involved in the oil boom that swept through Texas during and after WWI (See Mrs. Caperton's Mineral Lease in Legal Series). The Oil Investment Series contains correspondence from numerous oil related companies and banks, including, but not limited to, the Channel Development Company, Houston Bank and Trust Company, Evangeline Oil Company, and Garrett Petroleum Company. The correspondence contains newsletters, drilling status and field reports, stock valuations and reports, and investment solicitations. The correspondence also related potential and actual changes to particular companies and their functions. They also conveniently provided personal testimonies about past investments that should help assure future investment profits. The oil investment world around the end of WWI was a very dicey, pushy, and uncertain industry, something that the series captures quite well.