- Sid W. Richardson
Sid Williams Richardson (
May 25 ,1891 -September 30 ,1959 ) was aTexas oil man,cattle man, andphilanthropist known for his association with the city of Fort Worth.A native of Athens in east Texas, Richardson attended
Baylor University and Simmons College from 1910 to 1912. With borrowed money, he and a business partner,Clint Murchison , amassed $1 million in the oil business in 1919-1920, but then watched their fortunes wane with the oil market, until business again boomed in 1933.Richardson was president of Sid Richardson Gasoline Co. in Kermit, Sid Richardson Carbon Company in Odessa, and Sid W. Richardson Inc., in Fort Worth, and was a partner in Fort Worth-based Richardson and Bass Oil Producers.
He began ranching in the 1930s and developed a love of Western art, particularly that of
Frederic Remington andCharles M. Russell . He built one of the largest private collections of these artists' work, which opened to the public as theSid Richardson Collection of Western Art in 1982. After a yearlong renovation, it reopened as the Sid Richardson Museum in 2006.Richardson had already given numerous scholarships and gifts to local organizations when friend
Amon G. Carter persuaded him to establish theSid W. Richardson Foundation in 1947. The foundation awards grants to Texas organizations in the areas of education, health, human services, and cultural institutions; grants in the latter two categories are restricted to groups in theDallas/Fort Worth Metroplex area. The foundation's Fort Worth headquarters shares a building with the Richardson Collection of Western Art.Upon his death in 1959, Richardson, a bachelor, bequeathed a large portion of his estate to his foundation, and left several million dollars to his
nephew -partner,Perry Bass . Richardson namedJohn B. Connally , the future Texasgovernor , as co-executor of the estate, a designation which provided Connally with steady income for years thereafter.Institutions named for Richardson
* Sid Richardson Museum, a museum in Fort Worth
*Sid Richardson College , one of eleven residential colleges atRice University , Houston
* The Sid W. Richardson Physical Sciences Building atTexas Christian University , Fort Worth
* Sid Richardson Scout Ranch, a Boy Scout camp onLake Bridgeport , near Decatur
* Sid Richardson Hall, an academic building at theUniversity of Texas , Austin, which houses theEugene C. Barker History Center
* Sid Richardson Science Building,Baylor University , Waco
* Sid Richardson Recreation Center,Austin College , ShermanExternal links
* [http://www.sidrichardsonmuseum.org/ Sid Richardson Museum]
* [http://www.sidrichardsonmuseum.org/store/ Sid Richardson Museum Store]
* [http://www.sidrichardson.org/ Sid W. Richardson Foundation] ; includes [http://www.sidrichardson.org/Founder.html biography]
* [http://www.sidrmuseum.org/swr.html Biography of Richardson] , from the Sid Richardson Collection of Western Art
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