Payday: The Dan Hughes Story

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By Dan A. Hughes, Sr. 

and 

Garnette Bane


First Edition 

Copyright © 2016 Dan A. Hughes, Sr. 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any 

form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, 

without permission in writing from the author. 

ISBN: 978-1-944891-02-2 

Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 2016933748 

PAY DAY: The Dan Hughes Story 

by Dan A. Hughes, Sr., and Garnette Bane 

Printed by HPNbooks, 11535 Galm Road, Suite 101 

San Antonio, Texas, 78254 • (800) 749-9790 

www.hpnbooks.com 

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CONTENTS 

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 

1929-1936: Early Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 

1942-1946: High School Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 

1948-1951: The College Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 

1951: Monroe, Louisiana. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 

1951-1952: El Paso, Texas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 

1952: Korea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 

1953-1954: New Orleans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 

1954: Beeville, Texas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 

1954-1961: Union Producing Company . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 

1961-1969: Consulting Geologist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 

1968: Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 

South Texas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 

English Shooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 

Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 

Texas Ranches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 

An English Hotel and Canadian Sales . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 

Difficult Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 

South America and Colombia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 

Barnett Shale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 

Korean Investors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 

Fayetteville Shale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 

Colombia Cara Cara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 

Eagle Ford Shale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 

Colombia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 

Investors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 

Moving Forward and Giving Back. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 

Ranches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 

Present Exploration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 

Personal Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 

Dan A. Hughes Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 

The Hughes Family History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 

The Family of Winnie Bell Williams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 

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FOREWORD 

Water and oil may not mix, but the Hughes family of Texas has 

proved that blood and oil mix quite well. 

In fact, the Hughes family has established a legacy spanning more 

than eight decades, working within the oil and gas industry. It was 

Dan G. Hughes who pioneered the family heritage back in the 1920s 

while working at Magnolia Petroleum Company. The family’s 

livelihood today was born out of Dan G.’s hard work and 

perseverance during the early discoveries and harvesting of the 

natural resources. 

Texas has long held a reputation for being a petroleum-rich state; 

and, today, Dan G.’s heirs carry on his legacy in the technology-fueled 

renaissance, exploration and harvest of oil and natural gas, not only 

in Texas, but points far beyond. 

This book serves, not only as a history of the family and its success 

in the 20th and early 21st centuries, but as an instrument for 

education about the industry evolution. Contributing to that are the 

changes that have taken place in higher education with regard to the 

industry, including geology, exploration, mapping, discovery, 

investing, leasing, drilling, and extraction. 

It is the hope that this book will also serve as a roadmap for 

educators and young geologists alike, promoting their interest and 

growth in the ever-challenging industry. If it inspires even one young 

geologist then the Dan Hughes family has made a vital contribution 

to the oil and gas business. 

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Dan G. and Winnie Hughes with grandmother Cordelia Hughes and Dan and Dudley, 

age one month, 1929. 

1929-1936 

EARLY LIFE 

Oil was pumping through Dan A. Hughes’ veins when he was born 

in 1929, attributed, perhaps, to his father’s job in the oil industry, 

strong work ethic, and the fact that Dan, and his identical twin 

brother, Dudley, were born in nearby Monroe, Louisiana, the same 

year as the Texas Oil Boom. That’s when wildcatters struck the East 

Texas field, opening a reservoir that has produced 5.5 billion barrels 

of oil to date, which was the largest strike at the time in the U.S. 

Because their birth coincided with that oil boom, an oil career 

seemed almost an omen—a good one. 

There is clear evidence that Dan Greenwood Hughes, the boys’ 

father, directly impacted their careers in the oil and gas industry by 

setting an example as a dedicated and conscientious worker—a man 

who embraced the work ethic. Employed by Magnolia Oil Company, 

he loved the relatively new business of laying natural gas pipelines to 

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connect the newly discovered giant Monroe Gas Field that has 

produced 7.3 trillion cubic feet of gas to date with various towns and 

markets in the southern area of the nation. (The pipeline division of 

that company later merged into United Gas Pipeline Company where 

he worked until his retirement.) 

With only an eighth grade education, he wanted more for his 

family and, to accomplish that, later obtained his high school 

diploma through a correspondence school. He and his own twin 

brother, Dudley M. Hughes, had quit school at an early age to help 

support the family when his father was killed during WWI. 

Dan G.s’ sons wanted desperately to emulate their father. In 

retrospect, they have done just that. Growing up, Dan and Dudley 

listened intently to the stories their father told about his work—the 

challenges—and the fun that he experienced working in the oil fields. 

Dan G. realized that the wildcatters who discovered and produced the 

oil and natural gas to fill his pipelines were the true backbone of the 

petroleum industry and guided his sons in that direction. They listened 

with wide-eyed anticipation; and, as they grew older, both knew they 

would find their respective niches in the oil and gas fraternity. 

For Dan, there was never a consideration of an alternative career. 

It was always the oil and gas industry. Though his means of acquiring 

his own success was vastly different from his father’s, he was willing 

to do whatever was required to chart his own course. He admits that 

acquiring the knowledge and respect required of the industry took 

a lot of hard work, determination, resilience, and education on his 

part. He did whatever was required; never losing sight of his goal. 

When the Hughes family, a family of simple means, moved from 

Monroe, Louisiana, to Lake Charles, Louisiana, in the 1930s, young 

Dan was mesmerized as his father expounded on the benefits of 

working in the oilfields, and dreamed of doing the same work that 

his father had found so fulfilling. For Dan, his career would become 

similar to a Horatio Alger story of growing up with little affluence; 

however, through formal education and being receptive to learning 

all aspects of the business, he has achieved his life’s dream and 

contributed much to the business that remains close to his heart. 

Dan G. believed in strong values and worked hard to build a 

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Christian family unit. On weekends, the family piled into their T- 

Model Ford and went fishing on the bayou, using cane fishing poles 

to catch the family’s dinner. Picnics were held under the Spanish 

moss-covered-cypress trees along the water’s banks. They crossed the 

waterways on crudely made ferry boats consisting of small barges with 

large ropes running from one side of the bayou to the other. Cars 

drove onto the ferries and the men “drivers” walked along the deck 

pulling the rope, directing and propelling the barge across the water. 

They swam and played on the beach, keeping a watchful eye pealed 

for boats. During the drive to-and-from these family activities, Dan 

G. often talked about his job to his captive audience. 

When Dan was about four years old, his father was promoted to 

pipeline foreman and transferred to Wichita Falls, Texas, where the 

family found a completely different climate than that of Louisiana. The 

family originally lived in a rent house in the town and that was where 

Dan’s twin siblings June and Jane were born. His mother said that 

Magnolia Petroleum Junior Baseball team, 1925 Dallas City Champions.(Twin Brothers, 

Dan Greenwood Hughes (pictured 2nd from right in front row ) and Dudley M. Hughes 

(center 2nd row), (age 18), father and uncle respectively of Dan Allen Hughes and Dudley 

J. Hughes. 

7


Dudley (left) and Dan (right),.age three. 

when the boys were asked what to name the girl babies, Dan suggested 

that one be named “Pay” and the other be named “Day”. Instead, they 

were named Barbara Jane and Beverly June Hughes. To a six-year-old 

boy during the depression, everything seemed to revolve around pay 

day. Dan and Dudley began first grade at Benjamin Franklin 

Elementary School, in Wichita Falls, two weeks after their sixth birthday. 

It was during the boys’ first year of school that the family moved 

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into a company house provided by United Gas Company (UGC). It 

was similar to many company camps built in oilfields for its employees 

during the Depression years. It was part of a larger compound 

comprised of a sizable fenced-in area containing an office, garage, 

warehouse, pipe yard, and a couple of company houses. While living 

there, a summer storm and tornado hit the area, destroying much of 

the company yard and the back half of the family’s home. Dan G. was 

so disturbed by the storm’s destruction that he went to his boss at UGC 

and requested a transfer to Louisiana out of the West Texas storm area. 

It wasn’t long, however, until the family moved in Texas to the 

Palestine area where Hughes became the district pipeline foreman 

for United Gas, and where the family spent the next 15 years. There, 

they lived in a company house on top of a sandy hill in a large yard 

enclosed by a chain link fence. It was located about a mile east of the 

city limits and consisted of a house at one end, and a large garage, 

office, and pipe yard at the other. The UGC camp had electricity 

where as the surrounding farms did not. The first thing the boys’ 

father did after moving in was to construct a concrete storm cellar 

to which the family retreated when there were strong thunderstorms. 

The yard was surrounded by forests. Young Dan’s love of hunting 

The first arc-welded Pipeline in Monroe Gas Field, c. 1927. 

9


would later prove important in blending his hobby with work by 

entertaining and making oil deals with investors. As the children 

grew older, they spent much of their free time roaming and hunting 

in the nearby woods. The boys’ father had taught them to hunt and 

to respect the wilds and the animals that inhabited it. 

During the Great Depression, a large number of farms were 

repossessed by banks, and Dan G. considered himself lucky to have 

a permanent job at a time when many of his employees, and 

neighboring farmers had lost their farms and homes. 

School for the Hughes boys was similar to that of other youngsters 

in the area. They either walked to school or rode the school bus six or 

so miles, to Swanson Hill School. Typical of other rural schools in that 

depression era, the building had no electricity, was lit at night by 

means of gasoline lanterns, by large windows during the day, and 

heated by wood-burning stoves in the winter. After school, the boys’ 

early entrepreneurial spirit often prompted them to recycle scrap 

lumber, tools and other accessories from the pipe yard to build things, 

including a tree and club house. One summer they built a small 

building they referred to as their store. The two forward-thinking 

Dan, Jane, Dudley, and June Hughes in Wichita Falls, Texas, c. 1937. 

10


youths purchased candy for a nickel a bag at a nearby country store, 

and after dividing it into smaller bags, resold it to neighborhood 

children, making a couple pennies on each bag. The Hughes brothers 

had, through their own experience, discovered free enterprise. 

WWII imposed hardship on most families. Money was tight and 

entertainment, limited. Many evenings were spent at home listening 

to radio programs, news about the war, and serials such as Fibber 

McGee and Molly and The Lone Ranger. 

The Hughes were strict Christians, belonging to the local Baptist 

church. They taught their children the same values that they, 

themselves, possessed. Everyone was expected to be in church on 

Sunday, and attend Wednesday night prayer meetings. Dan’s strong 

Christian upbringing has served him well throughout life, and he 

attributes much of his success to his faith, and the Golden Rule of “Do 

Unto Others.” 

The boys’ father enjoyed hunting and, through him, his sons also 

acquired a fondness for the sport. As they grew older, their parents 

instilled a healthy respect for guns and taught them to properly handle 

them, when they gave each of them B-B guns (and later, a 22-caliber 

rifle) for hunting birds, squirrels, and rabbits near their home. Hunting 

birds and other wild game would become Dan A.’s second passion. 

Every summer, their public activities were limited because of the 

polio epidemic of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s. Many parents restricted 

entertainment at public places because the source of the crippling virus 

had not been identified. Instead, the boys spent the summer months 

with relatives on their farms in Louisiana where they were expected to 

do farm work along with their cousins. Dan says that early taste of farm 

life further helped him develop an appreciation for the benefits of hard 

work. The farm workday began at 4:00 a.m. when the dairy opened and 

adults milked about 150 cows at that time. Too small to milk, they 

helped feed cottonseed hulls and bran to the cows. The same routine 

was undertaken in the evening; and the next day, they did it all over 

again. This showed Dan that there was no time off in the dairy business 

because each cow has to be milked twice a day, seven days a week. The 

farm experience quickly solidified the fact that farm life wasn’t for him, 

and that he’d rather work in the oil and gas business. 

11


Swanson Hill School, a Country School near Palestine, Texas. The Hughes brothers were 

eight years old (Dan far left, front row, and Dudley, third from right, front row). 

The primary crop grown on the farm was cotton, which was picked 

by men and women in conditions that had not changed much from 

former slave days. The twins used cotton sacks and picked cotton along 

with the other laborers, and were paid one penny per pound. They 

worked hard for hours and still only had about thirty pounds. Regular 

black laborers picked about 150 pounds during the same time. The boys 

couldn’t understand why the adults picked more cotton than they did. 

It was a lesson well learned about output, supply and demand—not to 

mention the hard work and dedication that was expected of them. 

The family traveled on weekends and during summers to Kilgore, 

Texas, about 60 miles from Palestine, where another aunt and uncle 

lived. The trips coincided with the early development of the giant East 

Texas Oil Patch in the midst of a tremendous drilling boom. Arriving 

after dark, the glow in the sky from thousands of flaring oil wells could 

be seen 40 miles away, brightening the horizon as if it were day. Dan’s 

uncle was a mechanic for oil field engines in a business he owned and 

overhauled large engines. It was then, that the oil “bug” really began 

to nibble at Dan. 

12


Although still quite young, the Hughes boys had experience in 

earning their own money whether from a make-believe candy store 

or as farmhands. Much of the work was tough, but at the end of the 

day, they liked the feeling and reaping the rewards of hard work. 

One of their last summers at Swanson Hill School, they landed 

weekend jobs delivering circulars for a finance company. They worked 

about a year-and-a-half and earned enough to purchase bicycles for 

about $30 apiece. The bikes provided transportation until they were 

old enough to get their drivers’ licenses. Once they acquired licenses, 

they were allowed to drive the family car delivering telephone books. 

They quickly learned life didn’t “just happen.” By working, they could 

make it happen! 

“I remember December 7, 1941, the day Pearl Harbor was bombed,” 

says Dan. “That Japanese mission killed so many of our servicemen and 

women, and changed the lives of all Americans over the next few years. 

Even as young as I was, I saw the change as the United States converted 

all of its industries to producing war products; and much of the nation’s 

food and goods were rationed. The items that affected my family the 

most were automobiles, tires, gasoline, meat, sugar, and cartridges and 

shotgun shells, which we used for hunting. My father was exempted 

from serving in the war because of his age and his job supplying natural 

gas. His job was considered essential to the war cause. The local home 

guard installed a large steamboat-type whistle on the pipeline behind 

our house, which was blown with high pressure natural gas instead of 

steam. This was a preparedness test for enemy aircraft had there been 

a real threat.to the nation’s safety,” says Dan. 

As he matured with the small jobs he had held throughout his 

youth, Dan landed a job the summer after Pearl Harbor in an 

automotive garage where he repaired vehicle bodies and replaced auto 

windows. He found it to be a laborious job as he hammered out 

crushed parts, filled in dents, and learned to spray paint. Still, he liked 

the rush that he felt from having done a day’s work for honest pay. “I 

felt this was important work because no new cars were being 

manufactured during the war. It was up to everyone to keep the old 

ones running,” he says. The job lasted all summer and was part time 

the following school year. 

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1942-1946 

HIGH SCHOOL YEARS 

Shortly afterward, in 1942, Dan entered the ninth grade at 

Palestine High School. The school curriculum had changed from an 

11-year term to a 12-year term and, as a result, his class skipped a 

grade. One of the United Gas field men drove Dan G’s company car 

to town each morning for the mail, and Dan and his siblings rode to 

school and back in the automobile. He earned relatively good grades 

and made friends at the new school. Weekends were spent with the 

church’s Boy Scout troop collecting junk steel, aluminum, and copper 

for the war effort. Other times, he joined his brother and other 

neighbor youth for two- or three-day campouts. The fish and game 

he caught during the campouts was welcomed by his family since 

meat of all kinds was heavily rationed. 

During the summer following his freshman year in high school, Dan 

got his first opportunity to work in the oilfields. Their father helped the 

boys acquire jobs with the company pipeline gang. The crew left the 

office each morning to do maintenance on hundreds of miles of natural 

gas pipelines in the East Texas area. Even though they were underage, 

management allowed the boys to be employed through a contractor 

that furnished heavy equipment to the company and work directly with 

the company men. There was a labor shortage during the war, and the 

company was glad to get the additional help. It was an excellent job for 

a teenager, and Dan held the job all or part of each summer while in 

high school. He was intrigued by the job of repairing pipeline leaks, 

clearing rights-of-ways, mowing and cleaning meter stations, walking 

pipelines looking for leaks, digging ditches, laying small pipe with tongs, 

and other outdoor jobs. At that time a member of the work gang walked 

the pipelines every month, checking for leaks. The work gang detected 

problems when they noticed that gas had killed the grass in an area 

above the leak. Members of the crew were dropped off at intervals of 10 

to 15 miles where they walked the stretch of line making a note of any 

leaks. The gang later returned to the reported leaks, dug them up, and 

bolted a clamp around the pipe, squeezing a rubber plug into the hole, 

14


thereby stopping the leak. It was some of the hardest work Dan had 

done up to that time, but he found it intriguing. The boys had fallen in 

love with the oil and gas industry following their first work in the oil 

fields alongside the older gang members. 

At the beginning of the boys’ sophomore year, their father 

encouraged them to go out for football practice, even though they 

were only 13 years old and smaller than the older players. They were 

in good physical shape because of the pipeline work which enabled 

them to survive the rigorous schedule. The exhausting practice every 

day after school during football season helped Dan stay in great 

physical shape; and has served him well throughout his adult life. 

Dan and Dudley continued working with the local pipeline gang 

during the summers, which helped out with family expenses. During 

the summer between their sophomore and junior years, their father 

was given an assignment to supervise the construction of a 24-inch 

diameter gas pipeline that was being built from Carthage, Texas, to 

connect with United’s main pipeline system in Louisiana. When the 

twins turned 15 that summer, their father helped them acquire jobs 

as welders’ helpers with the contractor constructing the pipeline. Dan 

recalls it as the “best paying,” but hardest job he ever did. It was 

extremely hot weather and brushing the hot welds in the humid river 

bottom was strenuous. Between each welded section, the welder drove 

High School Graduation 1946, Dan, Left, Dudley, Right 

15


a bulldozer pulling a steel sled that contained all the heavy welding 

equipment. Dan walked beside the sled dragging the heavy welding 

cables. Rough cut log saplings were placed across marshes to hold the 

weight of the equipment and when the sled hit them, the logs rolled 

until the sled passed over them. During one such effort, Dan was 

walking near the front of the sled and suddenly found both legs caught 

by rolling logs. He felt himself being slowly crushed, and screamed to 

the welder who was driving the tractor, but the driver couldn’t hear 

him because of the noise. Dan began struggling and, by some miracle, 

was pulled from the log’s jaws. From then on, he followed behind the 

sled dragging the cables. 

While gasoline for automobiles was tightly rationed during the war, 

it was unrestricted for airplane use as there were few civilian planes. A 

friend of Dan’s, James Edward Fuller, took flying lessons and got his 

license when he was about 14 years old. His father owned a store with 

a butcher shop that proved to be a prolific business due to the meat 

shortage during the war. James’ father gave him money, which allowed 

unlimited use of the airplanes. Dan became hooked on flying when 

he flew with his buddy all over the area doing aerobatics and 

barnstorming. (At the time, there were no regulations or air control). 

Though James taught Dan to fly, Dan didn’t acquire a pilot’s license 

until much later. His friend often rented Piper Cubs, Taylor Crafts, 

Curtis biplanes, and PT-19s, a plywood low-wing trainer. Dan says that 

their flying at such a young age and without aeronautical guidelines 

was probably dangerous, but, it whetted his appetite to learn to fly. 

When he, Dudley, and James were seniors year in high school they flew 

to various colleges to scout out the campuses. Among the schools was 

Texas A&M where he hoped to enroll. 

In 1945 at 16, as Dan was graduating high school, Germany 

surrendered and there was an optimistic feeling throughout the 

country even though the nation was still at war with Japan. Following 

graduation, Dan and Dudley, went back to work on their summer 

pipeline jobs. It was during that time that the United States surprised 

the world by dropping the atomic bomb on Japan, ending the war. The 

war with Japan officially ended on August 14, 1946, Dan and Dudley’s 

seventeenth birthday. 

16


1946-1951 

COLLEGE YEARS 

KILGORE JUNIOR COLLEGE 

After working with the pipeline crew during the summer of 1946, 

Dan, Dudley and several other Palestine High School graduates, 

enrolled at Kilgore Junior College for the fall semester. This began 

their formal education in the oil and gas industry which set the true 

course of their vocation. The twins enrolled in the School of 

Engineering with a major in petroleum, primarily because of their 

familiarity with the oil and gas wells and pipelines. Students lived in 

private homes within walking distance of campus as there were no 

dormitories. Area residents found it practical to rent rooms to 

students who attended the nearby college. Dan found the curriculum 

interesting; yet, it seemed more like a continuation of high school. 

He wasn’t as challenged as he thought he would be. The studies were 

basic freshman courses of English, math, and chemistry which could 

apply to several different majors. 

An uncle who lived near Kilgore offered Dan a job working in his 

garage repairing large oil field engines and trucks because of his past 

experience working in the automobile shop in Palestine. He worked 

after school in his spare time and on Saturdays. Dudley obtained a 

job painting oil derricks in Kilgore and worked there for several 

weeks. Eventually he quit because he considered the job too 

dangerous. Dan, however, continued working on the oilfield 

equipment. It was a means to an end to earn money that would one 

day enable him to fulfill his dream of acquiring an education and 

entering the petroleum industry. 

Back home in Palestine that summer, Dan and Bobby Dupree, 

resumed their summer jobs working on the pipelines for United 

Gas. “We worked hard all day and dated as much as we could at 

night. By then, Dad had given Dudley and Dan the old, 1937 

Chevy that had served the family well throughout the war years.” 

(After the war was over and the government shifted from military to 

17


other production, including automobiles, their father bought a new 

family auto.) 

About halfway through the summer, Dan G. moved the family to 

Dallas when he received a promotion as District Superintendent of 

the East Texas Division of United Gas. Dan and Dudley remained in 

Palestine, though, obtaining room and board from the Dupree 

family. The three young men drove the old 1937 Chevrolet for those 

last few weeks of summer. This was the Hughes boys’ last summer in 

Palestine, and it was years before they returned to visit. 

NORTH TEXAS AGRICULTURE COLLEGE 

The boys’ sisters and parents moved into a large company 

house located about two miles southwest of the Oak Cliff area of 

Dallas. Just before the fall semester began, the boys joined the family 

there. Once again, the family lived in provided housing within a 

fenced compound that also contained a large district office, 

compressor station, and four company houses with manicured 

lawns. Having completed a year of college, the twins transferred to 

North Texas Agricultural College (NTAC), now University of 

Texas-Arlington, and commuted to school via the family’s old car for 

the next year-and-half. 

NTAC was co-ed, but all eligible males were required to register for 

the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC). Even though the war 

was over, troops were still required to occupy Europe and Japan. 

ROTC was one way the U.S. ascertained it had plenty of trained 

officers should they be needed in an immediate conflict. There were 

many veterans enrolling in colleges under the G.I. Bill at that time, 

but they were exempt from having to take additional military training. 

Dan and his brother carpooled with several veterans to school and 

back each day. Bill Writtenberry was one of those veterans. He had 

been in a combat engineering company on the front line as the Allies 

fought through France and Germany. Much of their commuting time 

was spent listening to the veterans’ war stories. 

Credits they had earned in the pre-engineering courses at Kilgore 

enabled Dan and Dudley to easily pursue their major in petroleum 

18


Dan in ROTC Uniform while at North 

Texas Agricultural College (now University 

of Texas at Arlington), 1947. 

engineering. They carried a heavy 

schedule consisting primarily of 

math subjects, chemistry, physics, 

and related science courses. They 

found the curriculum to be more 

difficult than at Kilgore. As a 

result, about half-way through the 

semester they dropped two of the 

courses and made them up the 

following term. Although Dan 

flunked one course, he improved 

his grades and earned a high score 

in the same subject the following 

semester. He credits NTAC with 

teaching him the importance of 

taking notes and studying hard. 

The young men remained 

industrious when they weren’t 

attending class. With an abundance of surplus war material in salvage 

yards, including old aluminum cowlings from bomber engines, the 

two turned to recycling for their own benefit. Using the scrap 

material, they, once again, drew upon their work ethic and 

fascination of building things. The result was building a large canoe 

and trailer to transport the vessel to-and-from shore. A friend owned 

a Model “A” Ford that they used to pull the boat trailer. There was a 

relatively large man-made lake about a mile from their house that 

furnished cooling water to an electric generating station. With 

this canoe, they continued their love of fishing and duck hunting. 

While not as productive as the lakes and rivers in Palestine, they 

enjoyed the fruits of their labor and the game they were fond of 

hunting or catching. 

On holidays, they used the trailer to transport the canoe to the Big 

Thicket; a remote river bottom located about 40 miles southeast of 

Palestine on the Neches River. They camped out for days at a time 

enjoying the outdoors and hunting and fishing. While Dan found 

Dallas a great city with a lot fun activities, he always felt the lure of 

19


Fishing on Mountain Creek Lake in southwest Dallas, Texas, 1947 in a canoe built by the 

boys out of surplus aircraft aluminum engine cowlings. Shown is Dudley, front, Dan, rear 

and Noble who had the trailer which was used to transport the canoe. 

the great outdoors and all that it had to offer. Even as a youth and 

later, a young man, he could not deny the pull he felt to the earth. 

As the second semester of college began, the petroleum 

engineering curriculum included a class in general geology. That 

course, probably more than any other, proved to be the most 

interesting subject Dan had ever taken. Professor Jack Boone made 

the course so interesting that, right away, Dan knew he would make 

it his life’s profession. As identical twins, Dudley felt the same 

inspiration; and, both changed their college major to geology. 

Fortunately, all the hours they had earned in the engineering major 

were transferred to the geology major as it was also part of the School 

of Science. They found the geology courses so inspirational that they 

acquired a fresh enthusiasm for their college years, making the 

course work much easier. 

1948-1951 SUMMERS - HEALDTON, OKLAHOMA 

As their first spring semester ended at NTAC, Dan and Dudley 

acquired summer jobs with Magnolia Petroleum Company (now 

Mobil Oil) working in the oil field. Dan was assigned to the Magnolia 

20


Field office in Healdton, Oklahoma, and Dudley went to 

Burkburnett, Texas. Both locations were, at that time, actively drilling 

oil wells. This proved to be the most stimulating and interesting 

work, and Dan admits to falling in love with Healdton and the oil 

fields. Magnolia had several drilling rigs operating, developing a 

5,500-foot oil reservoir in an old giant shallow field near Healdton. 

That summer, he worked as an assistant to a chemical engineer 

named J. C. (Buddy) Cain, a Navy war veteran who had received his 

degree before entering the military. One of Dan’s main jobs was 

collecting samples of the casing head gas from the new oil wells. 

Then, it was tested in the field lab to determine the amount of liquids 

that could be extracted from the natural gas in an absorption plant. 

He also ran various tests at an old absorption plant in the area that 

operated on the gas from hundreds of old oil wells and the pipelines 

bringing gas to the plant. It was satisfying work and the pay was good, 

with Dan averaging a savings of about $800 during the summer 

months, even after paying room and board. In fact, $800 paid most 

of his room, board, and tuition for an entire year when he later 

transfered to Texas A&M. (His brother did not fare as well and quit 

his job after two weeks, returning to Dallas and United Gas.) 

Prior to returning to school for the fall semester, Dan, Dudley, 

and Ronald Hughes, a cousin, were given permission to use the 

family car to drive through west Texas and New Mexico. It was the 

first time Dan had ever seen the majestic rugged mountains and 

deserts of that area. They traveled from El Paso to Ruidoso, 

absorbing all of the interesting sights in between, such as Carlsbad 

Caverns, White Sands, and Guadalupe Peak. The area would 

eventually prove to be an important part of his life in the military, 

ranching, and business. 

In Dallas again, the twins continued commuting to NTAC and 

became deeply involved in geological studies and all of the required 

associated subjects. With having learned how to study the previous 

year, Dan earned good grades in most courses. 

While WWII was over, other events around the world were heating 

up; and, the military began putting pressure on Dan and Dudley to 

become more active in their campus ROTC training and to make 

21


sure their grades were high in order to avoid the draft. A friend, Dee 

White, a geology major from Mount Carmel, Illinois, was also from 

a family in the oil business. Dee had attended Texas A&M previously, 

but after flunking out, had enrolled in NTAC to improve his grades. 

The previous summer, he had mapped out a geological structure on 

coal outcrops near Mount Carmel, and his father had drilled it 

discovering a nice shallow oil field. He was driving a new Hudson, 

which was popular after the war, and that enhanced Dan’s desire to 

find his own oil fields. 

TEXAS A&M COLLEGE 

The brothers enrolled at Texas A&M College for the spring 

semester in the School of Geology, and were assigned to an 

engineering company in the Corps of Cadets because of their 

previous petroleum major. There was a cold snow and ice storm 

the day they left for College Station, so that forced them to travel 

by train, rather than automobile, along with many other Aggies. 

Dee White also traveled by train due to the icy roads, and 

introduced Dan to the local beer hall the first night, which is the first 

time he had drunk any volume of beer. The next day, they managed 

to enroll, were issued uniforms, and assigned to their military 

company dorm. 

That year, due to the extreme hazing that had developed in the 

cadet corps, the entire freshman class was moved to Bryan Air Field 

off campus. All freshman classes were held at that location. Any 

student transferring to Texas A&M was required to serve one semester 

as a freshman in the cadet corps before advancing to the class equal 

to his grades. By the same token, individuals in advanced classes were 

required to live on campus. There were only 18 freshmen on the 

campus that year, along with 5,000 upper classmen, all of whom 

wanted to “shape up” the few frogs (freshman). The corps fell out, 

formed ranks, and had a lengthy inspection and harassment period 

prior to marching to the mess hall for meals. The campus freshmen 

were under constant pressure except when in class, and after the 

evening mess when they were confined to their rooms to study. 

22


Freshmen were not allowed to leave the college for the first six weeks, 

and during that period, about a third of the campus freshman 

dropped out. Dan and Dudley were roommates and knew they would 

make the grade because they had no other place to go. 

During the first semester, Dan completed the basic subjects of 

physics, chemistry, and various math subjects required in both 

engineering and geology. He made relatively good grades thanks, 

somewhat, to the nightly study period that the corps required of 

freshman. In the latter part of the term, after they were allowed to 

leave on weekends, Dan and Dudley often hitchhiked to Dallas on 

Friday and back to campus on Sunday. The Aggies had a hitchhiking 

line on the highway that ran through the college with one cadet 

thumbing the motorist and all students sitting in line beside the road. 

As the autos stopped and declared their destination, the cadets next 

in line for that city climbed into the car, introducing themselves. Very 

seldom did the two have to wait more than 30 minutes before being 

on their way to Dallas. During their travels, they met many interesting 

people, some of whom were in the oil and gas industry. That gave 

them the opportunity to discuss the business at length. They 

questioned the drivers about locations and oil discoveries—even 

where they thought favorable oil leases might be located. 

At the completion of the school term, Dan immediately returned 

to Healdton, Oklahoma and his old job with Magnolia Petroleum 

Company. That year, his boss assigned him to the roustabout crew to 

which he reported each morning along with three other college 

students, one regular employee about his age, and an older crew 

foreman. They left the office early each morning with brown bag 

lunches and worked hard in the fields digging ditches, laying 

pipelines, and completing other general maintenance tasks. His 

principal job was laying two- and three-inch pipe with tongs, 

connecting the casing head gas from the new wells to the gas plant. 

Many of the wells were the ones that he and Buddy Cain had tested 

for gas analysis the previous summer. It was hard labor; but, Dan 

never shied away from demanding work—or, his dream! In fact, he 

was quickly becoming accustomed to the hard work and felt he was 

getting close to realizing that dream. 

23

Dan Hughes biography-chapter 3_Layout 1 2/26/2016 11:34 AM Page 24 

Through the influence of 

their father, Dudley got a job 

working in the geological 

department of Union Producing 

Company (United Gas Co.) in its 

main office in Shreveport, 

Louisiana, that summer. He 

worked with the geological group 

in the main office and was able to 

see how geological prospects 

were developed and carried 

through to the drilling stage. The 

geologist helped him draw a map 

of the Camp Hill Salt Dome 

located under the Swanson Hill 

School that they had attended in 

Palestine. With preliminary 

exposure, they worked in their 

spare time trying to promote oil 

wells during their next two years 

in college, with some success, but no commercial production. This 

exposure to the practical side of oil exploration greatly increased 

Dan’s interest in the subject and made his remaining two years of 

college a pleasure because it primarily focused on geology. 

Their junior and senior years, the geology class had about 25 

students. Texas A&M was a small college at that time, having a total 

enrollment of about 6,500 students. The Hughes boys became 

good friends with their professors, and one who became an 

exceptionally close friend and lifetime acquaintance was 

Fred E. Smith. Fred taught paleontology and the geology of 

Texas primarily, having worked as a petroleum geologist for 

Humble (Exxon) in Texas and Louisiana. He, and his wife 

Odette, had no children, so he was like a second father to 

many students. He led the geology students on weekend field 

trips, mostly to the Texas Hill country around Austin and San 

Antonio, and sometimes to the folded belts of Oklahoma. The 

24 

Professor Fred Smith, Texas A&M 

University, who led geology students on 

many weekend field trips.


college furnished transportation and those who participated had 

only to pay for shared motel rooms and food. These were great 

experiences and Dan learned a lot about rocks that one could not 

acquire from textbooks. The trips would later prove valuable to him 

in his nearly 70-year oil career. 

Dan and Dudley began their junior year as full pledge juniors in 

the Corps, but having transferred in, knew that they would never 

attain a high military rank. The higher ranks were reserved for 

students who had been at the college from their freshman year. The 

two brothers roomed together and continued going to Dallas on 

weekends. The junior curriculum consisted primarily of geology 

courses and labs, providing hands-on knowledge and experience— 

something they both enjoyed. They participated in various college 

activities, attended football games, and began to thoroughly enjoy 

college. Dan spent his free time in the geology department and on 

weekend field trips with Professor Smith. 

One of the required courses for a geology degree was a six-week 

summer field camp, the first part of which took place in the central 

mineral region of Texas from a headquarters at Brady, Texas; and a 

second phase in the Big Bend Park operating from Alpine, Texas. 

Dudley went on the trip the first six weeks while Dan returned to 

Healdton, Oklahoma, to work with Magnolia. Dan had a great 

summer working with his college pals, but left in the middle of the 

summer to complete the geology camp. 

Headquarters for the summer geology camp were located on an 

abandoned WWII airfield in which the old barracks were used as 

dormitories with a central mess hall within the fenced airbase 

enclosure. A&M students shared it with some University of Texas 

geology students, but each college conducted its own classes and field 

work independent from the other school. The camp proved to be an 

interesting experience and was also fun. The team left early each 

morning in college vans and spent the day studying and mapping 

rock formations in about a 30-mile radius, returning at nighttime. 

Much of the mapping was done on a surveying plane table on which 

one member of a party shot elevations and plotted them on a chart. 

The other two members of the team carried surveying rods and 

25


followed rock outcrops for the plane table member to sight. When 

all of the data was collected in an area, the points were contoured, 

thereby resulting in a geological structure map. This was the first 

method that early geologists used in finding structural traps to drill 

and find oil. The method is still being used in the twenty-first century 

in areas where there are distinct outcrops such as the Rocky 

Mountains. The remainder of the nights were spent working on the 

data collected during the day. Professor Jack Boone was in charge of 

Dan’s section that summer, and was the individual who taught him 

his first geology class at NTAC. Boone had taken a temporary 

assignment to teach the A&M field camp and the two enjoyed 

renewing their old friendship. 

For the last part of the summer camp, the group moved to Alpine, 

Texas, to study and map the rugged terrain of the Big Bend of Texas 

and Big Bend National Park. The trip to this area instilled Dan’s desire 

to own a West Texas ranch, several of which he acquired later in life. 

In the fall of 1950, Dan began his fifth year in college as a senior 

in the Cadet Corps with the senior boots, uniform, and all of the 

privileges attributed to the rank. He and Dudley were assigned to a 

senior company, so designated because it was comprised only of 

graduating seniors that had no high rank in the command of the 

Cadet Corps. Nearly all of his studies were different phases of 

geology, some of which were graduate courses. He was active in the 

campus Geological Society and elected vice president his senior year. 

On weekends, Dan visited family in Dallas and worked with local 

oil promoters on oil deals in the North Texas area, where he 

managed to secure a small interest in a shallow well drilled on U. S. 

Sen. Sam Rayburn’s land. He saw it as a great experience for a young 

novice—but was disappointed when it turned out to be a dry hole. 

Because the oil business was booming, The Geological Society was 

quite active, acquiring many experienced speakers who were 

independent oil operators and other industry executives. As vice 

president of the organization, along with some professors, Dan was 

expected to take guest speakers to dinner prior to meetings which, 

as it turned out, enabled him to meet a number of interesting 

professionals and opened doors for him once he began his career. 

26


Summer Geology Camp headquartered in Brady and Alpine, Texas, 1949. 

One of the more outstanding speakers was Mike Halbouty, a 

successful young independent who inspired young geologists in 

the organization. Having graduated in the class of 1930, he 

made several trips a year giving talks on salt domes and other 

27


interesting geological developments of the day. (Dan has 

remained friends with him for more than 50 years; and in 1997, he 

awarded Dan and Dudley the Texas A&M Geosciences and Earth 

Resources Distinguished Achievement Medal at the college 

graduation ceremonies.) 

All graduating seniors qualified for and joined the American 

Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) that year. The AAPG 

held its annual convention in St. Louis that spring and Union 

Producing Company offered to take two geology students and its 

geologist to the convention on the company airplane. Dan and Skip 

Mills were elected to go because they were the president and vice 

president. It was the first large northern city Dan had ever visited and 

he arrived in style, attending all the sessions in his senior cadet 

uniform including Aggie boots. 

In the last semester of college, each student was required to write 

a thesis on a geological subject of their choosing, and read the paper 

aloud to the school Geological Society. The student having the best 

paper was invited to present it before the Houston Geological Society. 

Dan’s paper was written about the San Juan Basin of New Mexico in 

which he emphasized the great oil and gas potential of that region, 

capturing first place in the contest. Because of his southern accent, 

however, Dan’s professors thought it best that the second place 

winner deliver his paper orally to the organization. That turned out 

well because it prompted Dan to hone his professional speaking voice. 

Dan made his first attempt to complete an oil deal during his 

senior year. George Crocker, one of his geological classmates, lived 

in Pleasanton, Texas, where an oil play was being developed. 

Excellent shallow oil wells were being made in the Carrizo Sand at 

about 3,000 feet deep. In studying the area, Dan and George realized 

that faults, trapping old deeper Edwards’ production, were being 

projected up to the Carrizo formation. This formed an oil trap in 

the Carrizo, south of the deeper wells. They found one of the old 

fields that had not been tested in the Carrizo. Dan, George, and 

Dudley drove to Corpus Christi during a school break and requested 

a farm out from Tidewater Oil Co. who held leases on the prospect. 

Sutton Drilling Co. from Pleasanton agreed to drill the well 

28


contingent on whether or not they could acquire the leases. 

Charlie Brocato, the Tidewater geologist for the area, was 

amused that college boys would attempt such a feat. The acreage, 

however, was farmed-out to an older, established independent 

and a well was drilled that discovered a new Carrizo oil field. 

This was an exciting time for Dan and his brother, and by the time 

they graduated, they couldn’t wait to begin their careers in the 

geological profession. 

Graduation ceremonies were held in the spring with Dan and 

Dudley’s degrees contingent upon their completion of summer 

military camp. The military training was usually taken between 

the junior and senior years, but was postponed for geologists due 

to the compulsory geology summer camp at the time. With five 

years of college under his belt, and a Bachelor of Science degree 

in geology, Dan was finally on his way to doing the work he had 

always envisioned. 

After a few days rest in Dallas, Dan and his brother went to El Paso, 

Texas, and checked into Fort Bliss to complete additional military 

training after which they were to receive their second lieutenant 

commission in the Antiaircraft Artillery. The training was similar to 

an army boot camp with a great deal of time spent on the firing 

range. There, they fired everything from rifles to quad-50-caliber 

machine guns to 40-mm cannons and 90-mm high-altitude 

antiaircraft guns. After about six weeks they completed the course 

and received their officer’s commissions and official diplomas from 

Texas A&M University. 

29


1951 

MONROE, LOUISIANA 

Dan was glad to be out of school and ready to plunge into the 

world of geology. Union Producing Company, the exploration and 

production subsidiary of United Gas Corporation, offered the 

brothers jobs as geological oil scouts, which was its training program 

for geologists. Union Producing’s headquarters were located in 

Shreveport with district offices throughout the oil and gas producing 

areas of the coastal states. Dan was assigned to the Monroe, 

Louisiana, district office and Dudley to the Beeville, Texas, office. 

Dan loaded his few possessions from his Dallas home into a newly 

purchased car (the first he had ever owned), drove to Monroe, and 

reported to district geologist, Morris (Pete) Peterson. It was a small 

office and he and Pete comprised the geological department; 

although there was a land man, draftsman, and two secretaries on 

staff. Most all young, single men lived in boarding houses, but before 

Dan located one, he received a lucky break. The district land man 

had a widowed friend who was visiting in Europe. She had a large, 

plantation-type house on the bayou at the edge of town, and wanted 

someone to live in it while she was gone. For a low rental payment, 

he was able to live in the mansion for his entire stay, considering it 

the grandest home in which he had ever lived. 

Practically no homes were air conditioned, but his bedroom was 

a screened in porch on the second floor behind the large colonial 

columns overlooking the water. There was a large ceiling fan over 

the bed making sleeping comfortable. All meals were eaten in 

restaurants, which was fine with him because he traveled frequently 

and was on an expense account. 

The old Monroe Gas Field was located around the city covering 

many square miles and produced from a limestone reef at a depth 

of about 3,000 feet. The field had already produced several trillion 

feet of gas and was still a strong producer. This large gas reserve was 

one factor that contributed to the formation of United Gas, a 

company that developed its business by building pipelines and 

30


delivering natural gas to the towns and markets in the area. Shortly 

after Dan’s arrival, the company began drilling three new wells in 

the old field, and it was his first well site operation with the company. 

The wells were drilled with an antique steam rig called a “steam 

jenny” on which all of the engines were powered by steam supplied 

by a large boiler. The boiler, although inefficient, was fired by natural 

gas supplied from the lease at no cost to the drilling contractor and 

made the operation economical. The wells proved to be good gas 

wells and pipe was sent to each of the three wells for the pipeline 

crew to tie the wells into the main gas line. On one of the three wells, 

the crew found that they lacked a half-mile of pipe to reach the 

main line, and it was determined that the civil engineers had staked 

the well on the wrong lease. As luck had it, Union Producing 

happened to own the lease where it was drilled, so the company still 

owned the well, even though it was on the wrong lease from the 

original location. 

The company also drilled a well trying to extend the Delhi Field 

which was one of the early large oil fields discovered in North 

Louisiana. Because Dan was inexperienced, the company sent S. A. 

Womack, a senior geologist from Shreveport, over to sit on (manage) 

the well. Dan stayed on the location with him several days taking 

cores. The well was dry, but educational; nevertheless, Dan knew he 

had chosen the right profession. 

Things went well for three months after Dan’s arrival in Monroe, 

until he received orders to report to Fort Bliss for two years of 

obligatory military service. He drove to El Paso and checked in at 

Fort Bliss headquarters. 

31


1951-1952 

EL PASO, TEXAS 

Fort Bliss was primarily a training base for antiaircraft artillery 

and was headquarters for that branch of the armed forces. The 

location was ideal as there were hundreds of thousands of vacant 

desert acres rimmed by rugged, bare mountains north of the fort 

that was used for firing ranges for the antiaircraft weapons, including 

the long range guns. 

Upon arriving, he reported for duty at headquarters, and was 

given a room in the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters (BOQ). He was 

assigned to officers’ training school to supplement the four years of 

military training he had received in college. The school was a 

concentrated course in all phases of military training pertaining to 

antiaircraft artillery, plus other basic subjects. During the breaks 

between classes, he often stood on the open veranda outside the 

classroom and, observed the mountains, and was amazed at how 

clear the brisk, fall desert air was between the building and the 

nearby mountains, wondering if gas or oil lay beneath the surface. 

Time would tell. 

After completing the initial three months Officers’ Training 

School, he was assigned to a battery in the Replacement Training 

Center at Fort Bliss as a platoon officer with the rank of second 

lieutenant. The captain commanding the battery was a Korean 

veteran, but the other junior officers were also fresh from college. 

The majority of the junior officers in his battery and BOQ were from 

Brigham Young University in Utah, The Citadel in South Carolina, 

and Texas A&M. They worked hard all day and played just as hard at 

night when they were off duty. 

The battery received a new group of 250 troops for advanced 

training on rifles, machine guns, and antiaircraft guns, both light 

and heavy, every six weeks. Dan was responsible for leading the men 

through a training schedule beginning with classroom, followed by 

rifle range firing. Advanced training began later, including long 

marches through the desert and bivouacking for days at a time. 

32


There were extremes of weather including burning heat, cold windy 

nights, and terrific sandstorms. 

During one of the training periods, the men were firing 90-mm 

antiaircraft guns at high altitude targets towed by a plane at about 

15,000 feet altitude with high explosive shells on timers. The shells 

were about three feet long and the timers were set automatically just 

before being fired. The timer delayed the fuse until the projectile 

reached the 15,000-foot level where it exploded sending shrapnel in 

all directions, hoping to hit the target. Two men fed the shells into 

the gun and a good crew could get as many as 25 projectiles into the 

air before the first one exploded. An A&M classmate, Lt. Barnes, was 

commanding the gun adjacent to Dan’s, when one of his loaders 

accidentally let the recoil of the large gun barrel strike the nose of 

the shell he was holding, knocking it to the ground. The shell began 

smoking and sputtering. Barnes reacted quickly, picking up the shell, 

ramming it into the gun chamber and firing it. The projectile 

traveled only about 2,000 feet and exploded, but was far enough away 

to keep from injuring any of troops. 

Another time, Dan’s battery was on bivouac on a firing range 

called Ora Grande. There was a small mountain in the range on 

which they could see an old mine tunnel near the top of the peak 

about a half-mile from camp. He and some other officers decided to 

hike up to the mine after the firing exercise was finished for the day. 

They climbed to the tunnel and began exploring the horizontal shaft 

with only a flashlight. They found the tunnel interesting, being 

several hundred feet long with many mineral deposits on its walls, 

and exiting on the other side of the mountain. When they started 

back to camp, it was almost dark and their flashlight batteries were 

dead. After having gone about 100 feet, one of the men stepped on 

a rattlesnake causing it to buzz loudly. They all jumped and, in panic, 

began running down the mountain. About every hundred yards 

someone stepped on another snake in the dark and the group 

panicked even more, running, and stumbling and falling down the 

incline. After stepping on numerous snakes, they arrived back at 

camp and found that no one was bitten, thanks to the Army-issue 

combat boots. 

33


At the officers’ club one night, Dan was introduced to a girl whose 

father was a dentist in El Paso. In addition, the man also invested in 

gold mines and other projects in Mexico. He was interested in 

geology, and he and Dan seemed to have a lot in common, talking 

for hours on that subject. His daughter and Dan were inseparable 

and spent holidays exploring the mountains, taking field trips into 

the desert to see fresh lava flows, and picnicking at White Sands. Due 

to religious differences and her mother’s opposition, the friendship 

was eventually curtailed. 

In order to give the troops more uniform training on small arms, 

the commanding officer organized an instruction team to teach the 

M-1 rifle and the M-2 carbine and put Dan in charge. Assisting Dan 

was a team of several non-commissioned officers who were 

considered to be experts on the weapons. The other training 

batteries marched their troops to an open space where he gave each 

group instructions on assembling, disassembling, cleaning and 

aiming weapons. His crew circulated among the men and assisted 

them in following instructions. Later, they took the group to the 

firing ranges where the 250 men fired live ammunition under a 

prescribed training program. 

The best thing about the assignment was that Dan and his crew 

had only to report for duty to the instruction field or firing range 

when they had a group to instruct. They received a schedule at the 

first of each month designating the days they were to give instruction 

and were free the rest of the time. This allowed Dan to have threeto-four 

days off; and in his spare time, began studying the geology of 

the area and the oil wells drilling that were within driving distance 

of Fort Bliss. The El Paso Newspaper published an oil column in its 

Sunday newspaper in which the oil activity in West Texas and New 

Mexico was reported, giving new locations and discoveries. 

One Sunday, he read about an oil well being completed about six 

miles north of Carlsbad, New Mexico, that was making 70 barrels of 

oil per day at a depth of 560 feet. The well had been drilled by an 

independent oil operator named George D. Riggs and was on a 

federal lease. Having time off, he drove to Carlsbad the next day, 

located the well which was still testing, and met Mr. Riggs. This 

34


proved to be one of the most fortunate acquaintances that Dan ever 

established and the two remained friends for the rest of Mr. Riggs’ 

life. George was an old geologist who was sent to Carlsbad by a major 

company doing surface geology and magnetometer surveys. He 

became an independent, teamed up with a landman named Russell, 

and together they leased thousands of acres of federal land along 

favorable oil trends in southeastern New Mexico. The leases could 

be filed on for 50-cents per acre for a term of 10 years. As larger 

petroleum companies began exploring the area, the leases would be 

sold for a much higher price plus an overriding royalty. 

The El Capitan Permian Reef outcrops in Texas just south of New 

Mexico and forms the highest mountain peak in Texas. From there, 

it dips gradually to the northeast until it goes underground near the 

city of Carlsbad, and continues to get deeper to the northeast. 

George Riggs had mapped a small surface high structure, north of 

Carlsbad, which he drilled encountering the reef at 540 feet resulting 

in that discovery. The well was drilled with a cable tool rig which lifts 

a heavy steel shaft about 20 feet long with a drill bit attached to the 

bottom end, up and down by means of a cable, chiseling away at the 

bottom of the hole. After a few feet of hole were drilled, the bit was 

pulled out and water poured into the hole. A bailer was then 

attached, lowered to the bottom of the hole, worked up and down, 

filling it with a mixture of cuttings and water. Eventually, it was pulled 

to the surface and emptied. The bit was then lowered into the clean 

hole and drilling continued. George and a helper drilled and 

completed the wells by themselves. He also produced and pumped 

the wells for many years thereafter. 

Dan was so enamored with Riggs and his oil exploration activities 

that he began traveling to Carlsbad on his days off to visit George on 

the drilling rig and helping wherever he was needed. The third well 

drilled was running somewhat low structurally to the other producing 

wells on the small oil field and encountered about three feet of tight 

sand with a good oil show. This sand occurred on the flank of the 

structure, above the producing zone in the reef, but appeared to be 

too tight to produce. The sand had pinched out and was gone in the 

higher wells in the field. On studying the area, Dan found that zone 

35


was the Yates sand and was producing in a field about six miles to the 

northeast, having made 1.8 million barrels of oil at a depth of about 

800 feet. Dan, obviously, gnawing at the bit to get to work as a 

geologist, suggested to George that he should lease more land down 

the flank of this structure where the sand might thicken and produce. 

Riggs said he had all of the leases he wanted, but recommended to 

Dan that if he put some leases together he might be interested in 

drilling them. That was the impetus Dan needed. 

Dan’s college classmate Ed Abrahamson was working for Union Oil 

Company of California in Roswell, New Mexico, as a geologist. Ed was 

a WWII veteran and, therefore, not required to serve in the armed 

services following graduation. On Dan’s next free day, he visited 

Abramson at the Union office. Dan told him that he would like to 

check an area for leases, at which point, Ed took him into the company 

land department and pulled out a map of the Carlsbad area, giving 

him the information he needed. The center of the prospect appeared 

not to be leased and the land man instructed him how to go about 

filing for it. There were 240 open acres, so Dan set about filing on it 

in his name, enclosing a money order for 50-cents an acre. As in all 

bureaucratic transactions, it took several months to hear from the land 

office, and when he did, Dan’s application had been rejected stating 

that the law requires the minimum amount of acreage which can be 

filed is 640 acres. Dan’s further study showed that a ruling had been 

made creating the minimum requirement to that effect after his 

original filing. Dan immediately filed an appeal stating that his 

application had satisfied all regulations in effect at the time it was filed, 

and the later ruling should not apply. It was several months later when 

he received notice that his application had been approved, and the 

lease issued. With that, Dan was ecstatic and well on his way to 

becoming a respected geologist and oil man. When Dudley married 

during the twin’s tour at Fort Bliss he gave Dudley half interest in the 

New Mexico federal oil and gas leases as a wedding present. 

Even though he had been giving instructions on small arms for 

several months, the army reassigned Dan to an infantry post to take 

advanced instruction on the rifle and carbine since he was an artillery 

officer. He drove to Fort Benning, Georgia, where he checked into 

36


the BOQ for a month’s training. He found it an interesting training 

session firing at all types of targets including long-range. He knew 

he and his men were being prepared for the possibility of warfare 

with the target practice; however, it allowed him to draw upon his 

love of guns, remembering the times he and his brother shot birds 

as youths. Near the end of the tour, he received his overseas orders, 

and much to his delight, learned he would be stationed in Germany. 

The army allowed officers 30 days to clear the post when reporting 

for overseas duty, so Dan drove back to El Paso to prepare for leaving. 

Three days before he exited the post, Dudley received orders to go 

to the Far East, which meant the Korean conflict. In checking with 

the personnel officer, Dudley found that there was an old regulation 

in the manual that stated twin brothers could, upon request, go to 

the same theater of operations. Dudley immediately requested to go 

to Germany with Dan. The warrant officer in charge told him, “Don’t 

worry Lieutenant, I’ll fix you up.” He did. The next day Dan’s orders 

were changed to go to Korea; and he left the post for a short leave 

in Dallas before shipping out. 

Jane (left) and June Hughes (right), circa 1952, home from college at the University of 

Oklahoma, shortly before Dan left for Korea 

37


1952-1953 

KOREA 

The leave provided a month of leisure; but when the time was up, 

Dan was eager to go. He had never been out of the United States 

except for crossing the Rio Grande into Mexico, and he looked 

forward to seeing the rest of the world. Dan’s father drove him to 

Dallas’ Love Field where he boarded a commercial flight to 

California to await his overseas’ flight. He was touched as he boarded 

the flight and noticed tears streaming down his father’s face. 

Fred Smith, Dan’s old friend and professor from Texas A&M, had 

been called back into the Air Force from his reserve status due to 

the Korean conflict, and was stationed in Los Angeles. Because Dan 

had never been to California, he arranged a two-day layover to visit 

the professor and his wife. There were two other Aggie classmates 

there when Dan arrived, and along with the Smiths, did a grand tour 

of Hollywood and Los Angeles day and night. Dudley arrived the 

next day and Fred was able to meet his plane and arranged for him 

to spend the night with the group, resulting in another night on the 

town. Dudley’s orders routed him through Alaska to Japan on 

military aircraft rather than a commercial airliner as Dan was 

ordered. Bad weather, however, and mechanical difficulties on the 

plane delayed Dudley’s arrival there for several weeks. 

Dan flew on to San Francisco and reported into an air base on the 

Oakland side of San Francisco Bay where he waited for his flight to 

Japan. He and other officers were instructed to check the flight 

schedule each morning to see if their names were on the list. If not, 

they were free until the next day. After about a week, his name 

appeared on the list and he, along with Lt. Chris Kristofferson, a 

friend from Fort Bliss, were assigned to the same flight on a 

Constellation airliner. They flew from San Francisco to Honolulu for 

the first leg of the journey, landing for refueling after 11 hours. 

About three hours later, they were in the air again, and flew 11 

additional hours, landing at Wake Island for refueling. The two took 

advantage of the sunny weather to play tourist, inspecting the 

38


destroyed tanks, ships, and gun emplacements that resulted from the 

battle of Wake Island a few years earlier. They found it hard to 

imagine how the Marines and Army personnel could have held off 

the Japanese attack force as long as they did. After about four hours 

of sightseeing, they boarded the plane again and flew another 11 

hours, finally landing at Yokohama, Japan on November 8, 1952. 

From there, they were bussed to quarters at Camp Drake. 

Dan found Tokyo to be a busy city which was rebuilding from the 

heavy bombing it took during WWII. The war had ended and Japan 

surrendered only five years before his arrival. Amazed at the upbeat 

nature of the Japanese, he surmised that they enjoyed an 

enterprising freedom and an influx of foreign money. That, he 

figured, inspired them to be industrious and hard-working. The 

other officers and Dan were assigned quarters in the BOQ and given 

instructions to check the bulletin board each morning for their 

orders to ship out. If their names were not on the list that day, they 

were free to leave the base and visit Tokyo. There was a plush officers’ 

club; but, unfortunately the enlisted men were confined to the base 

and did not get to enjoy the sights of Tokyo. That confinement made 

him appreciate his years at Texas A&M where he earned his 

commission. The only problem he had, along with the rest of the 

replacements, was that they did not receive any pay from the time 

they left Fort Bliss. He guessed the lack of pay was probably 

intentional so they could not use the money on superfluous things 

in Tokyo; however, he managed to purchase a small 35-mm camera 

for $25 dollars and took hundreds of color slides during his tour in 

Korea. After about a week, Dan received orders to report to the 

Chemical, Biological, Radiation School (CBR) located at Gifu Japan, 

about 200 miles southwest of Tokyo. He traveled to Gifu with a 

former A&M classmate, Dutch Maxwell. The school was located on 

an old Japanese air base from which kamikaze pilots flew their 

suicidal missions. He and other officers were housed in the old 

Japanese officers’ quarters and attended classes at a series of 

locations around the base. Gifu was a small rural town and he found 

the people to be warmer and friendlier than those in the crowded 

city of Tokyo. Dudley arrived on Dan’s last day in Gifu. 

39


The next morning after Dudley’s arrival, Dan boarded a train for 

an overnight trip to Sasebo, Japan, a small fishing village 500 miles 

southwest of Gifu, directly across from Pusan, Korea. Along with 

several officer friends from Fort Bliss, he was quartered in the BOQ 

for about a week. There they were issued winter combat clothing and 

equipment including an M-2 30-caliber automatic carbine. (After 

several boring days spent mostly in the officers’ club, they boarded 

a small ship nicknamed the “Pusan Express” for an overnight trip to 

Pusan, Korea, arriving on December 7, 1952.) After a few hours of 

sightseeing, including the large United Nations Cemetery, the group 

boarded an old wooden-seated train for an overnight trip to 

Yungdungpo, where the replacement center for the 45th Division 

was located near Inchon. Before the train left, they were issued 

ammunition for the carbines in case the train was ambushed. Luckily, 

the guns weren’t needed. 

After being issued more cold weather equipment, Dan and a 

group of replacements, were transported by truck about 150 miles 

across the Korean peninsula to the eastern side, and reported to the 

145th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion Headquarters. He was 

introduced to the ranking officers and briefed on the current battle 

Division Headquarters, Yungdungpo. 

40


An overnight trip on “Pusan Express” from Sasebo, Japan to Pusan, Korea. 

The headquarters of the 45th Infantry Division at Yungdungpo, Korea. 

situation. After an overnight stay in the visiting officers’ tent, he was 

transported by jeep about 15 miles north to Battery D where he 

reported to a Lt. Cushman. He was the platoon commander, having 

graduated from The Citadel in South Carolina, and an outstanding 

officer. The date was December 11, 1952, and the high temperature 

was 20 degrees Fahrenheit. 

41


The platoon equipment consisted of eight armored half-tracks, 

each containing four, turret-mounted, 50-caliber machine guns in 

the bed of the vehicle, one command half-track with radios, and one 

jeep. The weapons were designed to engage on fast, low flying 

aircraft with a high rate of fire power. The guns were controlled by 

a gunner in the turret with handlebar-type controls, and he could 

rapidly elevate the guns up and down and traverse in a 360-degree 

arc. The platoon was deployed in an antiaircraft pattern with the halftracks 

on ridges in roughly a two mile radius around several batteries 

of field artillery. The artillery units consisted of several batteries of 

105-mm howitzers positioned in the northern end of a large valley 

nearest to the front line or main line of resistance (MLR). Bordering 

the units were two batteries with 155-mm howitzers, which were 

bordered on the south by an eight-inch gun battery. There was a 

mountain protruding out of the valley floor north of the MLR from 

which the enemy could observe and direct fire into these positions. 

For this reason, smoke generators were employed during the 

daylight hours keeping a continual cloud of smoke over all positions. 

Because of the smoke screen, the area was named Smoke Valley. 

Dan shared platoon headquarters with Lt. Cushman. “Their 

office” was located in a bunker made of empty field artillery 

ammunition boxes filled with dirt and built into the reverse (south 

side) slope of a steep ridge uphill from a 105-mm battery. A short 

distance up the hill were larger bunkers in which the platoon 

sergeant and his headquarter crews were housed, and maintained 

the platoon communication center. 

The first couple of days were uneventful and Dan began each 

morning by riding in the jeep, inspecting the half-track positions and 

trying to learn the location of each. The cold weather was clear and 

beautiful, permitting great views from the high gun positions of 

Smoke Valley and the artillery units. Things were relatively quiet 

during the daylight hours with an occasional enemy shell or mortar 

exploding in the valley and a few firing missions from the field 

artillery. The major action took place at night with almost continuous 

fire from the artillery along with numerous incoming rounds. He 

and the other soldiers stayed in their bunkers most of the night and 

42


Pictures taken during the train trip from Pusan to Yungdungpo, 45th Infantry Division 

Replacement Center. 

felt relatively safe, sleeping as best they could with all the action 

around them. 

Dan witnessed his first combat casualty while walking back to the 

bunker from the mess hall when an enemy 75-mm shell burst about 

100 yards from him near a 105-mm gun emplacement. Dan and his 

companions hit the ground and watched as an officer and a sergeant 

ran out of the gun emplacement to take a compass azimuth reading 

in the groove cut by the shell before it exploded. The azimuths were 

plotted on a map in the fire direction center and used to triangulate 

on the enemy artillery positions. Unfortunately a second round was 

fired, exploding near the first shell. The sergeant was killed, the officer 

badly wounded, and medics ran out and carried them back to cover. 

The nightly shelling was routine, and as Christmas approached, 

the enemy activity increased with numerous small attacks and 

increased shelling. On Christmas Day, most of Dan’s platoon was 

allowed to travel to the rear to headquarters to see Debbie Reynolds 

with her supporting crew in a USO show. However, the group had to 

be back to its position before dark. 

43


44


The day after Christmas, Dan went to the mess bunker at noon 

and was eating at the officers’ table along with lieutenants from the 

surrounding units when loud screaming and an explosion knocked 

them from their seats. They dove for the floor while a dozen other 

blasts followed. Dan drew upon his faith, saying a silent prayer, and 

managed to stay calm until it was over a few minutes later. It turned 

out that his platoon and the field artillery units had been divebombed 

by a squadron of jets from their own aircraft carrier 

dropping 500 pound bombs. When targets were selected to be 

bombed, the field artillery fired smoke rounds on positions for the 

planes to hit. The smoke rounds were fired but the jets zeroed in on 

the Smoke Valley smoke screen, dropping their bombs on Dan’s 

platoon. One artillery bunker received a direct hit killing three men 

and wounding others. He was calm during the action but, like others, 

began shaking as they walked back to their bunker. 

When Dan arrived at his position, the platoon sergeant phoned all 

of their gun positions and found them to be unharmed. One of his 

half- tracks had fired into the rear of a jet as it was climbing out of its 

bombing dive and badly damaged it. It crashed into the sea before 

reaching the carrier; however, the pilot was rescued. A week later, all 

the pilots involved in the attack were brought to Smoke Valley where 

they apologized to all of the units. A coordinating mission was 

established whereby a Navy flying officer would be on the front line 

when an air attack took place and they gave directions by radio 

directly to the planes. 

Dan’s commanding officer, Captain Cahill, called him from his 

rear area position and questioned why, after the attack, he had not 

personally inspected all the gun positions over the 10-mile area and 

why he had not measured all of the bomb craters and reported back 

to him. The fact that Lt. Cushman had taken the platoon’s only jeep 

back to the battalion that day did not seem to matter to the captain. 

The only way he could have inspected all locations was to walk the 

route, and that would have taken many hours with shells dropping 

around him. 

On December 28, Dudley managed to stop by Dan’s bunker 

enroute to his first assignment in Korea to “A” Battery of the 145 

45


Dan A. Hughes at a 105 mm howitzer position located below one of his quad-50 

squad emplacements. 

A front view of 155 mm howitzer emplacement. 

46


A 155 mm howitzer position at Smoke Valley, seen here in the afternoon, 1952. 

A view of same 155 mm howitzer the morning a after typical night of shelling. 

47


A view of Smoke Valley from Platoon Headquarters. 

A view of Smoke Valley with bunkers and emplacements. 

48


A view of Smoke Valley from the rear. 

Smoke Valley, rear area. 

49


Debbie Reynolds performing with the USO during Christmas 1952 at 145th 

Battalion Headquarters 

AAA. His brother asked what had taken him so long to get there, but 

he explained that circumstances in the rear delayed his getting to 

the front. About the same time, Dan received orders transferring 

him from “D” Battery (in the field artillery position) to “C” Battery 

which had its guns dug in along the forward trench lines with the 

ROK (Korean) infantry. This was Captain Cahill's way of punishing 

Dan for not making a round of the positions following the bombing 

even though he had no way of doing it. That, however, turned out to 

be the best luck Dan had during the war as his new commanding 

officer was Captain Charles McDonough, a regular career army 

officer and a great leader. He was an outstanding officer and lived 

on the front line with the rest of Dan’s platoon, unlike Captain Cahill 

who stayed in the rear at the Battalion Headquarters. 

Dan and his group spent the next few days making daily rounds of 

their positions which were dug in along the ROK infantry lines and 

the slopes immediately behind the line. Things were fairly quiet for 

about 10 days and then, one night, hell broke loose. The platoon 

headquarters where he lived was located on a small ridge about 500 

yards behind Hill 854, the highest mountain along the front line. They 

50


Dan at Headquarters located behind Hill 854. 

Headquarters bunker behind Hill 854. 

51


came under heavy mortar and artillery fire and their forward line halftracks 

radioed that the enemy was attacking all along the front line 

and the men were holding them off with carbine fire. The quad-50s 

that were dug into the line were useless because the turrets could not 

be depressed enough to fire down the ridge in front of the trenches 

and their high profile made it dangerous to try to climb up to the gun 

during close combat. The enemy broke through the line on the left 

flank, between Dudley's and Dan’s platoons, and charged through the 

small valley in front of Dan’s position. He and the headquarter troops 

were cut off from the front line trench positions with the enemy 

between it and Hill 854. They considered themselves lucky because 

the foe attacked the back flank of Hill 854 instead of his position. Hill 

854 was occupied by the ROK Infantry who lost the hill temporarily, 

but the South Koreans reorganized, counter attacked, and drove the 

North Koreans back through the original break in the line. The 

platoon’s half-track positions in the front line trenches managed to 

keep the enemy out of the gun emplacements by small arms fire, but 

near the end of the engagement they telephoned that they were 

Rear view, Charlie Battery Platoon Headquarters, Hill 854. 

52


running out of carbine ammunition. The battery executive officer, a 

first lieutenant, was in Dan’s bunker that night and loaded a knapsack 

with carbine ammunition and crawled off into the night. He made his 

way to half-track positions a half-mile away and resupplied the needed 

ammo. The company commander recommended him for a Silver Star 

medal because of his courageous move. 

The nights reached temperatures of 20 to 30 degrees below zero 

and the days were not much better. At this period in the war, the 

army supplied the troops with cold weather gear including new 

insulated rubber boots (nicknamed Mickey Mouse boots) and parkas 

with fur-lined hoods. 

The next few days were spent at this location without any major 

action except for incoming mortar, mostly at night. During daylight 

hours, Dan made daily trips along the line inspecting his gun 

positions. Along with some of his men, he received orders to go to 

Inchon and practice anti-aircraft on Inchon Bay. They traveled across 

Korea by truck and reported to the firing range installation on Inchon 

A map of the first deployment of Dan’s division using quad-50s for ground fire. Map 

courtesy of Dudley J. Hughes from his book, Wall of Fire. 

53


An example of the trenches used in Allies lines. 

A headquarters bunker supporting a quad-50 position 

54


The view from a forward artillery observing post. 

A quad-50 removed from its bunker for inspection. 

55


Bay. During the next three days his platoon, along with troops from 

other units, fired quad-50 antiaircraft fire for hours at targets being 

towed by airplanes over the partially frozen bay. Firing next to him 

was a Turkish unit that was good, but if the crew missed the target, 

the officer beat the men savagely with a swagger stick. The wind was 

cold, blowing off the frozen bay, but the sun was bright and they 

managed to complete the exercise without experiencing frostbite. 

Then, they traversed the Korean peninsula from the west coast by 

truck back to a position near the east coast. This was the only time 

Dan was able to leave the front line for the rest of his tour in Korea. 

One of Dan’s quad-50s was located on a high hill dug into the 

infantry trench and commanded a broad field of fire across the 

Mungdung-ni River Valley. An area known as T-Bone Ridge, seemed 

to project out of the mountain and across the river from their 

position about 1,500 yards away that served as an enemy outpost. The 

U. S. infantry occupying that portion of the line called him and Lt. 

Marlow to a meeting and showed plans to attack T-bone that night 

and wanted their unit to supply direct 50-caliber machine gun fire 

on the target. He bore-sighted the gun aimed at the outpost and put 

the required elevation indicated by firing tables for that distance. As 

the infantry attacked that night, his quad-50 team kept a continuous 

stream of fire into enemy trenches, firing two guns at a time for 

several hours. The attacking infantry troops were repelled by hand 

grenades and unable to take the Ridge. Surprisingly enough, Dan’s 

position drew little mortar or artillery fire, even though the position 

was highly exposed on top of the peak. It was concluded that the 

Chinese could not determine where the 50-cal fire was coming from. 

After a few days his platoon received orders to move off the front 

line to a position in the north end of Smoke Valley and prepare the 

guns for ground firing. There was no previous procedure to use the 

antiaircraft weapons for indirect firing and the guns had no calibration 

settings for such. Dan drew upon his math and calibration skills from 

college to measure the circumference of the turret on a half-track and 

used adhesive tape to mark and number it into 360 even 

measurements and put it around the stationary base of the turret. This 

gave a 360-degree base from which to measure azimuth. One gun on 

56


A quad-50 forward position preparing for a night firing mission at T-Bone Outpost. 

T-Bone Outpost, Mungdungni River Valley. 

57


the upper mobile turret was then bore-sighted in a known azimuth 

and a marker placed on this moving turret on that heading. If the 

North Star was sighted, then the marker would be placed on true 

north. As long as the half-track was in a stationary position, the turret 

could be rotated and the azimuth could be read like a compass. The 

elevation of the guns was obtained by use of a gunner’s quadrant 

placed on two fixed points on one of the 50-caliber guns. As the gun 

was elevated, a bubble level measured the mils of elevation at which 

the guns were to be fired. The troops had firing tables that indicated 

the elevation in mils required for the trajectory to reach any distance 

within range of the guns. Dan was issued maps of the terrain with field 

artillery forward-observer positions marked, and with this the platoon 

was ready to start firing. Dan set up the fire direction center (FDC) in 

his bunker on a hill above the field artillery positions. 

About 10 o’clock that first night, one of the forward observers called 

him and gave a fire mission on enemy moving on a distant hill. Dan 

gave settings to four half-tracks to fire 100 rounds from two guns on 

each vehicle. When all was ready, he gave the commence firing order 

and eight 50-caliber guns cut loose, spraying the target with exploding 

A quad-50 emplacement. Enemy trenches are on hill to far right. 

58


armor piercing projectiles. The forward observer was elated because 

the 50-caliber fire was much easier to observe at night than the field 

artillery, and he could tell it was right on target. Dan’s guns were firing 

from antiaircraft positions above the field artillery guns, but were well 

within range of targets 3,000 yards in front of the line. What he did 

not realize was that no one had alerted the field artillery that the quad- 

50s were going to shoot ground fire and field artillery personnel 

thought themselves under heavy enemy attack. After events had settled 

down the next morning, the major in charge of the field artillery fire 

direction center, climbed the hill to Dan’s bunker and informed him 

that the general ordered him to move his firing set-up into the field 

artillery fire direction center. This proved to be a good move because 

as fire missions were called in from the many forward observers on the 

MLR line and the senior officer in charge of the fire direction center 

chose which type of artillery to fire on the target. 

After several successful fire missions, an ordinance officer came 

from battalion headquarters to learn how he had calibrated the guns. 

The officer copied the azimuth tape band Dan had made for the gun 

turrets. A few days later, Dan’s platoon received steel calibrated bands 

to replace the adhesive tape on the base of the turrets. The firing 

was so accurate that the markings he had made were going to be 

adopted for use by the army. The bands were also sent to all other 

quad-50 units in the 145th Battalion. 

Shortly thereafter, Dan called the coordinates to one of the guns 

to fire a mission into the no-mans-land zone. The platoon sergeant 

commanding the gun, called back that it was aiming directly into the 

friendly infantry trench on the Ridge in front of the gun, even 

though Dan’s map indicated that the gun’s trajectory should be well 

above the ridge. Again, Dan’s education enabled him to realize that 

the old Japanese topographic maps being used were not accurate for 

close-in firing. The next day, Dan ordered all of his quad-50s, that 

were in ground firing positions, to take a bore sight reading every 

five degrees, on the forward friendly ridge in front of their position. 

By adding the prescribed safe elevation to fire over friendly troops 

to the elevations measured at the guns, he was able to compute a nofire-line 

on the map for each gun's field of fire. Any target beyond 

59


Artillery Fire Direction Center, Heartbreak Ridge Area. 

Artillery Fire Direction Center, Heartbreak Ridge Area. 

60


this line was open to be fired upon by that quad-50. The half-tracks 

were stationed about 400 to 500 yards apart so that each had its own 

field of fire but at a distance, the fields all overlapped. 

During the next few weeks, Dan spent most nights in the FDC firing 

missions. The quad-50 had become popular with the forward observers 

and the FDC commanding officer was glad to give these gun targets 

that he, otherwise, might be reluctant to expend the heavier artillery 

ammunition on. During the days, he made rounds inspecting the 

quads and gauging the gun barrels to make sure they were not too 

worn to fire accurately. Also, his platoon built a road up to a high point 

on the north edge of Smoke Valley, dug in and installed a quad-50. 

The position was their nearest point to the MLR and continued to 

receive a lot of mortar and artillery fire. While building the road, they 

found a fox hole with the remains of a dead soldier who probably had 

been killed a year earlier. The graves registration unit was called and 

a truck was sent to pick up the skeleton and dog tags. 

After surveying the personnel in the platoon, he selected a 

Sergeant Taylor to assist him in the FDC. He proved to be a brilliant 

student and after a few days of training, he was able to fire his own 

missions without Dan’s help. 

Near the end of January, orders were received to move the platoon 

to a position about 20 miles to the west of where it was located and 

relieve the unit occupying that part of the MLR. The position was on 

the southeast flank of a long hill extending in a north-south direction 

known as Heartbreak Ridge. The Chinese occupied the north part of 

this ridge and U. S. troops, the south end, with each side having deep 

trenches and bunkers facing no-mans-land in between. Dudley's 

platoon moved into position on the southwest flank of Heartbreak 

Ridge, and with Dan being on the southeast flank, established direct 

communication with each other. Dan surveyed all his gun positions 

and set up maps in the fire direction center, and began firing missions. 

The only communication with home during the entire tour of duty 

was the postal service. Dan wrote his parents almost daily, but did not 

talk much about his or Dudley’s combat activities. Being eager to get 

back to Texas and become active in the oil business, he did discuss the 

industry in most letters. His father sent the daily oil column from the 

61


Preparing for a mission with quad-50s. 

A quad-50 fire mission receiving coordinates from Dan in the Fire Direction Center. 

62


A quad-50 fire mission. 

Lt. Marlow, the other officer in Dan’s platoon, inspecting a quad-50 fire emplacement. 

63


Platoon Headquarters with a 30-caliber gun emplacement. 

Artillery rounds hitting enemy positions across valley. 

64


Artillery rounds hitting enemy positions across valley. 

Navy carrier airplanes dive-bombing enemy positions. 

65


Dan’s platoon en route to a position on Heartbreak Ridge. 

Dallas Morning News which covered wells being drilled in the North 

and West Texas areas. Also, George Riggs, the old geologist in 

Carlsbad, New Mexico, sent him drillers’ logs from around the 

southeastern New Mexico area; and, Dan worked on subsurface 

geology maps around the area where he had been stationed. The 

letters and newsclippings about the oil business kept his morale up, 

and he anxiously waited each day for the mail to arrive. When there 

was little action with the enemy, Dan continued his fascination with 

the oil and gas industry throughout his entire tour in Korea. 

For the next few weeks the unit was called on to fire more and 

more fire missions, mostly during the night. Occasionally the forward 

observer would report a fire starting in the area, indicating that the 

50-calibers were hitting their targets. Therefore the guns continued 

to fire bursts into the area all night. It was found that the 145 AAA 

Battalion was firing 30 to 40 tons of 50-caliber ammunition per 

month. The firing technique became routine and missions were fired 

as fast as, or faster than, the field artillery. The units were understaffed 

for this additional ground mission, requiring Dan to spend most 

nights controlling fire missions from the FDC. 

Having studied surveying and map-making in college, the fire 

control technique that his platoon developed was simple for Dan and 

Dudley, but many of the other officers lacking that background, had 

a hard time understanding it. The commanding officer of the 145th 

AAA set up a school at the battallion headquarters and had the two 

give several days of lessons to all officers of the battalion on indirect 

firing with the quad-50. 

66


Dan was moved from the platoon headquarters bunker to one near 

the large fire direction center bunker and shared it with a doctor and 

a chaplain. Their meals were served in a field artillery mess bunker. 

One night during routine shelling, a 75-mm projectile went 

through the armor in front of the radiator of one of the half quad-50s 

half-tracks. The shell did not explode, but it tore the engine apart and 

the half-track had to be towed off and replaced. The old ammunition 

used by the Koreans exploded only about 70 percent of the time. 

The ground fire from the quad-50s was being used more every night 

as the forward units found out how effective they were. General 

Ginder, commander of the 45th Division, and General White, 

commander of the X Corps, sent word to Dan’s battalion commander 

that they would like to come to the front line and observe a fire 

demonstration from the quad-50s. Of course, he and Dudley were 

selected for the firing mission. Fourteen of the half-tracks were within 

range of Heartbreak Ridge, even though some were in antiaircraft 

positions around the field artillery and had not been firing regularly. 

They aimed them at different spots along the ridge so they could 

saturate the entire area. They planned a time-on target shoot, which 

meant that the projectiles of the different guns would commence 

Battalion Headquarters, rear area. 

67


An illustration of quad-50s firing for a generals’ observation on Heartbreak Ridge. 

Courtesy of Dudley J. Hughes. 

hitting the target at the same time. The time of flight from each gun 

was computed and the guns were fired according to their distance 

from the target. By watching the second hand on a watch, Dan gave 

commands to the guns to fire as: Charlie 2 fire…Able 3 fire…Able 6 

fire…Charlie 4 fire, etc. Ordinarily, in routine fire missions they fired 

only two guns on each turret in bursts of 50 rounds. To impress the 

68


generals, they decided to fire all four guns on each turret, emptying 

the whole magazine on each, with 200 rounds. The shoot was 

impressive, lighting up the entire enemy portion of Heartbreak Ridge 

as 11,200 rounds exploded in approximately one minute. They made 

a mistake by emptying the guns because the general called for a repeat 

fire mission. It took about ten minutes to reload all of the turrets and 

fire a second burst of 11,200 rounds, blasting the ridge and impressing 

the generals. Dan often wondered how many casualties might have 

been inflicted on the enemy that night. 

As the weather warmed, the snow melted creating a land of mud. 

Then there was heavy snow and more thawing. Peace talks were being 

conducted at Panmunjom and, after two years, were beginning to get 

some results. The enemy began stepping up its attacks to gain a more 

favorable position before the cease fire was declared. Dan’s platoon 

fired thousands of rounds every night on the fire missions. The 

combat troops received word that the troops with fewer points than 

were originally required could be transitioned back to the states. The 

battery commander asked Dan to give instructions on operating the 

fire direction center to other officers prior to his return home. 

He and Dudley received word in early May that they would ship 

out for home on May 26. It was also Dan’s turn to go to Japan for R 

& R (rest and recuperation). This was to be a fabulous week in Japan 

in a luxurious hotel with all of the entertainment associated with it, 

but it meant that he would be going just two weeks before leaving for 

home. Dan decided to pass on the R&R and gave his slot to the next 

person on the list, which needless to say, made that man very happy. 

On May 21, Dan, Dudley, and Lt. Marlow boarded a jeep and 

traveled about 50 miles to the 45th Division Headquarters at 

Chunchon where they received their records and orders to go home. 

There they relinquished their combat gear and were issued new 

khakis. The next day, they boarded a train for Inchon. Four days later, 

they boarded a landing craft and were ferried to a passenger ship, the 

General Black. After 14 days, they landed at San Francisco and, finally 

on American soil, boarded a train with sleeper coaches, arriving at Fort 

Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. Here they were discharged a 

couple of days later. 

69


Lt. Marlow, May 1953. Marlow was the officer assigned to replace Dan. 

Poc Wan Sik, Dan’s Korean houseboy who was a very faithful servant, May 1953. 

70


Dan, waiting on orders to ship out for the United States, May 1953. 

Dudley (left) and Dan (right) at Dudley’s Platoon Headquarters. 

71


1953-1954 

NEW ORLEANS 

After a brief rest in Dallas, Dan contacted Fred Schroeder who was 

chief geologist at the headquarters of Union Producing Company in 

Shreveport, and was told to report for work at the company office in 

downtown New Orleans. Dudley received a similar appointment to 

the company’s office in Jackson, Mississippi. He loaded his Plymouth, 

drove from Dallas to New Orleans, and reported to J. B. Story, a 

geologist and district manager for the New Orleans area. The 

company started all new geologists as oil scouts through a special 

training program. He was assigned to represent the company in the 

Lafayette area. The office was located in the heart of the New 

Orleans business district and was comprised of about 50 employees, 

12 of whom were geologists. 

Dan settled into a rooming house on Canal Street near Lake 

Ponchartrain where two other young men lived. He formed a 

friendship with several other young men who also worked for other 

oil companies. 

At that time New Orleans was a real boom town with all the oil 

companies opening offices in order to get into the prolific oil and 

gas fields being discovered in South Louisiana in the aftermath of 

WWII. His job was to visit all the wells in his designated area, obtain 

all drilling and test data, and meet weekly with oil scouts from all 

the companies in Lafayette. Here they exchanged information on 

the wells being drilled or completed that week, along with seismic 

or leasing activity occurring in their respective areas. The 

information was written into notebooks and taken back to New 

Orleans. For the next two days, he spotted new well locations on 

maps and had the secretaries type the information on what was 

known as “well cards”. The company had two other geological 

scouts, covering South Louisiana and they jointly wrote a newsletter 

discussing new wells, leasing plays, or discoveries, etc. The newsletter 

was published and distributed to all of the executives within 

the company. 

72


Many of the scouts in the meetings were in training programs for 

their respective companies, and later ended up in management 

positions, CEOs, or became independent operators. Those friendly 

contacts have been valuable to Dan during his oil career. One of the 

geologists at UPC was Frank Harrison who had returned from Korea 

after Dan arrived, and later became an independent in Lafayette. 

Shortly after arriving in New Orleans, Dan was notified that he had 

been awarded a Bronze Star for the action he saw in Korea, and 

Frank held a small ceremony with secretaries in the office where he 

presented the medal to Dan. 

Dan and Don Gifford, a former Marine and another geologist at 

UPC, had G.I. Bill privileges and, already having finished college, 

opted to take flying lessons. Their instruction was given in an 

Aeronica Champion single-engine plane that only had a compass 

and altimeter for navigation. There was no radio. Taking off and 

landing was controlled by red or green lights from the control 

tower, which they circled prior to landing. After about eight hours 

of instruction, he and Don soloed and began flying around the 

swamps and bayous in South Louisiana and other areas to acquire 

flying hours. Learning to fly proved advantageous to Dan 

throughout his long oil career, allowing him to travel quickly to 

various oil leases. 

During his early professional career, most of UPC’s south 

Louisiana wells were drilled with drilling barges from canals dredged 

through the marsh. He visited the wells while they were coring or 

logging and stayed hours and, sometimes, days at a time. There was 

a large airplane-type propeller fan on the derrick floor that kept the 

infestation of mosquitos blown off the driller and floor hands. 

Anyone not in the wind stream, was quickly covered with mosquitoes. 

Since the transportation to shore was only by crew boat, he 

sometimes waited hours for the next vessel. 

Buel Humphreys, one of Dan’s running buddies and a bachelor 

friend from Canal Street, became interested in joining him in the 

oil business. Buel’s uncle in Dallas, W. E. Walker, was a prominent 

oil investor who owned a large amount of land in South Louisiana. 

He also had a drilling company in Corpus Christi with his brother- 

73


Bronze Star Medal awarded to Dan A. Hughes for actions in Korea, 1952-53. 

74


in-law, Galloway Selby, known as the Selby-Walker Drilling Co. 

(Later, when Dan formed his own company, he would do business 

with them.) 

Dan and Dudley continued building their careers in the oil 

business, and Dan frequently drove to Jackson, Mississippi, to visit 

Dudley where they would discuss the ins-and-outs of the industry. 

After a year in New Orleans, Dan realized that he had spent his 

entire $3,500 savings from Korea and he could not live on his $250 

a month. It was unusual for Union Producing Co. to transfer 

employees to other districts but Dan knew he had to try to get out of 

New Orleans. He went to J. B. Story’s office, told him about his 

financial woes, and asked to be transferred to a smaller town, 

preferably in Texas. The company arranged a transfer to Beeville to 

work for Pete Peterson who was the district geologist. Pete was the 

same person for whom Dan had briefly worked in Monroe before 

going to Korea. 

75


1954 

BEEVILLE, TEXAS 

After saying farewell to his New Orleans friends, Dan packed his 

belongings and headed for Beeville, Texas. The move meant he 

would be working in an onshore area of shallow production more 

suited to his geological skills. He took a quick and short tour of the 

town, and asked directions to the company office. At that time, 

Union Producing occupied a three-story brick building across from 

the court house square, and had about 150 employees including 

geologists, petroleum engineers, landmen, and accountants. Pete 

Peterson was happy to work with him again and introduced him to 

the geological staff which was comprised of 11 geologists plus 

draftsmen and secretaries. He was issued a company car, and with 

the assistance of office personnel, found an apartment without air 

conditioning over a garage in Beeville. 

During Dan’s first week on the job, he accompanied one of the 

older geologists to core a 5,000-foot well on the Jennings Ranch, 

about 60 miles southeast of Laredo. They drove onto the vast 60,000- 

acre ranch and came upon a rig in a clearing surrounded by 

mesquite brush. It was a pleasant time of year with a mild, dry breeze 

blowing, no insects, and millions of stars in a clear sky. The drilling 

crew had a mesquite fire burning and was cooking steaks and 

tortillas, creating an inviting aroma. That turned out to be one of 

the most pleasant sensations that Dan says he ever experienced— 

especially on a well. It was the complete opposite of the Louisiana 

wells. At that moment, he knew he had found a permanent home 

in South Texas. 

There were three oil scouting districts in South Texas, including 

Corpus Christi, McAllen, and San Antonio; with Union Producing 

Company having a geological trainee assigned to each. Dan was given 

the San Antonio area which covered the Cretaceous and shallow 

Wilcox trends and was, by far, the largest district, although less active. 

During the following months, he drove thousands of miles and 

became friends with most of the South Texas independent operators, 

76


drilling contractors, and many land owners. He cites it as one of the 

best training programs for future oil operators. At that time, all oil 

companies had oil scouts that made their rounds on Monday and 

Tuesday and met in San Antonio on Wednesdays to exchange data. 

Thursday and Friday of each week was spent in Beeville where he and 

other scouts spotted new wells on company maps, provided drilling 

notes to the geological secretaries to be typed onto cards, and wrote 

a newsletter describing new oil activities occurring in that area. The 

company had several rigs drilling in the area most of the time, and 

he occasionally went with other geologists to core and log the wells. 

During his first few days in Beeville, Dan met Billy Traylor, a 

friendly well-known character who worked in the cattle business. 

Traylor was employed by Rocky Reagan, Jr., a rancher with a cattle 

trading business in the San Antonio stock yards. Traylor, in turn, 

introduced Dan to many local residents and other ranchers 

including Raymond Welder, Jr., then a student at Texas A&M 

College. These friendships grew and continued as Dan became 

established in the oil business. However, after a few months in 

Beeville, the army notified Dan that he needed to join an army 

reserve unit in order to retain his officer’s commission. Failure to 

do so would make him eligible for the draft as an enlisted man and, 

being unmarried there was nothing to give him an exemption. 

Needless to say, Dan joined the local reserve unit, a Heavy 

Weapons Infantry Company, in Beeville. Union Producing Company 

was a patriotic company similar to many of the corporations that 

encouraged employees to participate in reserve units. Military 

reserves was a carryover from WWII, whereby employees received 

full salaries in addition to regular army pay for the two weeks they 

were at summer training plus his two weeks paid vacation. The 

infantry unit was comprised of six officers that were mostly former 

ROTC students, having received their commissions in college upon 

graduation, and about 125 enlisted men. Prior to leaving for reserve 

training that summer, Dan helped Raymond Welder, another Texas 

A&M alumnus secure a job with Union Producing as an oil scout. 

Fred Schroeder, chief geologist, said he had seen worse transcripts, 

but they hired him anyway. 

77


Officers in the Beeville Infantry Heavy Weapons Company. 

Lt. Dan A. Hughes and Lt. Raymond J. Welder. 

78


Firing an 80mm mortar. 

Firing a 30-caliber, water-cooled heavy machine gun. 

79


Dan’s reserve unit met once a week at the Bee County 

Courthouse, for a couple hours of military instruction. In return, 

he received a days’ army pay which boosted his modest salary. Most 

of the enlisted men and non-commissioned officers had served in 

the army during WWII or the Korean War. The Beeville Heavy 

Weapons Company was armed with light and heavy machine guns, 

mortars, and recoilless rifles. Even though the officers had never 

had any training on some of the weapons, they learned quickly, and 

trained the troops as best they could. Many summer training camps 

were held at Ft. Hood or another camp in the Gulf Coastal area. 

80


1954-1961 

UNION PRODUCING 

COMPANY 

Eventually, Dan was promoted to geologist and given the 

Cretaceous Trend to map covering railroad District One. He worked 

long hours trying to cover the large geographical area, mapping 

different horizons. One of the main formations mapped was the 

Edwards Limestone which was a newly discovered producing trend. 

There had not been many wells drilled in the remote areas of the 

Cretaceous Trend, but Dan mapped the whole trend from the Rio 

Grande to East Texas on the control that was available. Well sitting 

(geological supervision of the drilling operation) was also part of 

the job and when wells were drilling around Beeville, he was sent to 

core and log the wells. In those days, the company did a lot of 

wireline coring which consisted of a core barrel being dropped 

down the rig’s drill pipe and retrieved via a wire line after cutting a 

20-foot core. Another barrel could be dropped and coring 

continued while describing the first core. The geologist continued 

the coring and drill stem testing any oil shows in the cores, 

sometimes continuing for days at a time. The experience proved 

invaluable. 

In the fall of 1956, George Riggs, the old geologist he had met 

back in Carlsbad, notified Dan that he was finally drilling the federal 

lease that Dan had acquired while he was in the army at Fort Bliss. 

About a month later, the old cable tool rig drilled into the Yates 

Sand at 650 feet and the sand was carrying oil. After giving it a shot 

of nitro, the well flowed 60 barrels of 32 gravity oil per day. This was 

one of the biggest thrills that Dan ever experienced and he knew it 

would only be a matter of time before he would go into business for 

himself. Until that time, he was gaining good experience with Union 

Producing where he continued to map South Texas geology. 

Dan married Juanita Jo Wentz in December 1956, and a year later, 

their first son Dan Allen was born three days before their first 

81


George Riggs #1 Hughes Federal discovery well for the Salazar Yates Oil Field near 

Carlsbad, New Mexico, in 1956. 

anniversary. Dan had joined the Beeville Country Club upon moving 

to Beeville because Union Producing Company had recommended 

it, and because they enjoyed the social activities. Dan saw it as a great 

way to meet people who were in the same industry, share ideas, and 

establish industry contacts. At that point, he was a well-sitting 

geologist and had to be away quite a bit of the time, plus had his 

obligation at summer camp for the army reserve. 

Jody’s father, Bill Wentz, had built a large house for a rancher by 

the name of Hub Sellers on his ranch in the Nueces River bottom. 

The city of Corpus Christi, at that time, was constructing a dam on 

the Nueces River which was to be the water supply of Corpus Christi, 

and was named Lake Corpus Christi. The Sellers had a lawsuit with 

the City of Corpus Christi over the value of the house and the suit 

continued for months. When it was finally settled, the water from 

the lake was almost reaching up to the house. Bill Wentz called Dan 

one evening and said that he and Jody could purchase the house 

for practically nothing and he was willing to move it for them at a 

82


Dan A. and Juanita W. Hughes’s wedding day, December 1956. 

low cost. This was something new to Dan, but he had the courage 

to invest in the structure, bidding $1,500 for the house which was 

over 6,000 square feet. The City of Corpus Christi accepted the bid 

and they became the owners of their first house. Bill was able to 

move the redwood walls intact, tear down the brick walls and save 

most of the other fixtures that went with the house. Dan bought a 

lot from Rocky Reagan for $2,500 in a subdivision near the Country 

83


Club and drew plans to cut down the size of the house to about 

5,000 square feet, forging ahead on a small budget. In order to build 

it as cheaply as possible, he went to Monterrey, Mexico and bought 

enough Mexican terrazzo tile to cover most of the flooring in the 

entire house for twenty-five cents per square foot. The brick part of 

the house connecting to redwood walls was built with Mexican brick 

also obtained inexpensively. The house had central heating but no 

air conditioning, and was designed for the windows to open for air 

flow. It was designed well for an air-cooled house, but was still hot 

in the summer. The State Bank of Beeville granted him a $25,000 

mortgage loan on the property and, a few years later, he added air 

conditioning to the 5,000-square foot structure. Shortly after moving 

into the new home, the couple’s daughter, Keleigh, was born. 

When one of Jody’s uncles died a few months later, it was learned 

that his estate included an old cabin cruiser, built of plywood, trailermounted, 

and powered by two large Evinrude outboard motors. The 

boat was in poor condition, due to having been stored for a long 

The cabin cruiser previously owned by Jody’s uncle, purchased from his estate and restored 

by Dan and Gordon Noble. 

84


period. Dan offered the estate $500 for the boat rig and the offer 

was accepted. During several winter months, he, along with 

neighbor Gordon Noble, sanded, varnished, and repaired the 

cruiser. That spring, he towed the boat to Rockport and began a 

long fishing hobby in the bays between Matagorda and Padre 

Islands. This was the beginning of his love for boating and fishing 

in the Gulf of Mexico. 

The ranches around Beeville had some of the best quail hunting 

in the United States, and Dan was invited to hunt on many of his 

friends ranches. About that time, he became friends with L. D. 

Hunter, who owned a petroleum retail business that supplied 

gasoline and diesel to drilling rigs and filling stations. He was 

considered a master quail hunter and maintained a kennel of about 

40 bird dogs. They hunted together with clients and friends for the 

next 40 years. One advantage of living in Beeville was that a person 

could work until about 3 p.m. in the afternoon and still have time 

to get in an excellent quail hunt before sundown. 

Dan’s career at the UPC office was taking off and he found 

himself quite busy. The Fashing Gas Field which produced from the 

Edwards Limestone was discovered in the mid-1950s, and the UPC 

management became interested in the Cretaceous trend which he 

was working. The company leased about 150,000 acres along the 

trend, mostly based on Dan’s ideas, and began seismic surveys 

evaluating the acreage. 

A 45,000-acre block of leases was acquired in Lee County around 

the town of Giddings in an area in which practically no wells had 

been drilled. These were one-eighth royalty leases with a ten-year 

term, and acquired for approximately $2 per acre. The company 

completed a seismic survey over the block and found only a 

flattening of regional dip with some minor faulting near the City of 

Giddings. Even though it was a weak structure on a large lease block 

in a wildcat area, the company decided to drill a deep Lower 

Cretaceous well on it. 

A large drilling rig was moved onto the structure and the UPC #1 

Prieuss was spudded in early 1959. Dan was the geologist on the well 

and was on it for several weeks, watching the mud log and samples. 

85


When the well reached approximately 8,000 feet, the mud log began 

getting oil and gas shows in a limestone formation. It was decided 

to core the formation and a 50-foot diamond core barrel was run 

on the bottom of the drill pipe. The coring began, but, after about 

20 feet, the core barrel jammed and had to be pulled out of the 

hole. The core was laid out on the derrick floor. Dan described it as 

hard, dense, grey lime that, when tapped with a hammer, fell apart 

in slabs along almost vertical fractures with each side of the slab 

having a heavy coating of oil. The coring continued with the barrel 

jamming every 15 to 20 feet until a total of approximately 200 feet 

had been recovered, all of which had the heavy coating of oil in 

fractures. The well was drilled deeper but was plugged back and 

completed in the zone for about 300 barrels of oil per day. This was 

the discovery well for the Giddings Austin Chalk Field which 

eventually produced approximately one billion barrels of oil. An 

offset well was drilled by UPC on the property of The City of 

Giddings Airport and was completed as an open hole producer in 

the Austin Chalk. That well initially tested in an open hole 

completion at the rate of 1,200 barrels of oil per day (BOPD) but 

was killed with drilling mud to repair a leak in the tubing. When 

reopened, the well never come back in. After several acid 

treatments, the well was completed for about 25 BOPD. Due to the 

low price of oil and the Texas allowable, it was decided that it would 

not be feasible to develop the field at that time. It was almost 20 

years later before a drilling boom would begin and hundreds of 

wells drilled extending the field into several counties. 

Another interesting play with UPC at that time was in the 

Maverick County area in which Dan recommended the company 

lease about 67,000 acres of the Halsell Ranch, on the idea of the 

Edwards’ exploration. Conoco Oil Co. had discovered a shallow, 

1,800-foot field adjoining this property on the east side and he 

concluded that some of the field would extend on to this UPC lease. 

A seismic survey was conducted over the entire lease and one or two 

deeper prospects were found. Eventually UPC drilled a 10,000-foot 

well on one of the prospects and, there again, discovered oil in the 

Austin Chalk. This well was completed for about 100 barrels a day 

86


but was never extended to any large area. The company also drilled 

several wells along the edge of the lease adjoining the Conoco field 

and made some mediocre oil wells in the San Miguel formation at 

about 1,800 feet. Dan became fond of the area at the time and 

enjoyed visiting the Eagle Pass and Del Rio areas and the adjoining 

Mexican towns across the river. Years later, he had the opportunity 

to purchase the Quemado ranch located in that area, which enabled 

him to own the property for ranching and hunting game. 

87


1961-1969 

CONSULTING GEOLOGIST 

In 1961, after several years of experience, Dan decided it was 

time to become an independent geologist, so he resigned from 

UPC to devote his efforts toward private ventures. About the same 

time, he was approached by Caddo Oil Company (Caddo) to do 

consulting geology work for that company in South Texas. Caddo, 

headquartered in Shreveport, Louisiana, primarily invested in 

shallow wells of the type in which larger companies would not be 

interested. Caddo offered him a salary of $1,000 a month plus an 

overriding royalty to find shallow prospects in South Texas 

operating out of his Beeville office. Dan immediately began 

working on old Cretaceous shallow fields that were located in the 

northern portion of the trend near San Antonio. The first prospect 

to be developed by Caddo was the Bear Creek Field located in 

Medina, Frio, and Atascosa counties, which resulted in 

approximately 250 oil wells. This field at 2,200 foot depth was an 

old shallow Olmos strand line in which two or three wells had been 

drilled that tested some oil but in low qualities and, therefore, was 

never developed. Sand fracing was a new development in the oil 

industry at that time and by fracing these shallow wells, they were 

completed as producers that made 15 to 20 BOPD. Even though 

oil was only $3 per barrel at the time, this was considered 

commercial. Also, one of the motivating factors that stimulated the 

oil business was the tax structure in the United States. The 

Democratic Party was in power and had instigated a 90 percent tax 

which was later reduced to 70 percent tax on all income in the 

United States. The oil business proved to be a lucrative investment 

at that time as companies were allowed to deduct all of their 

drilling costs plus get a 27.5 percent depletion allowance on any 

oil income. This permitted the investor to drill with thirty-cent 

dollars, and if successful, received 27.5 percent of the income tax 

free (depletion allowance) which made the oil business an 

attractive investment at that time. There were plenty of funds 

88


available but the big problem was finding wells to drill. While 

working with Caddo, he began drilling all of the old shallow fields 

in Bexar, Atascosa and Medina counties and eventually ended up 

with approximately 400 shallow producing wells. The royalty 

income along with his retainer allowed him to live well. The best 

of the fields was the Bear Creek Field which, by the twenty-first 

century had produced about 2.75 million barrels of oil. Other wells 

were drilled in a series of small fields including the Somerset Field, 

Von Ormy, Taylor-Ina, Adams, Anchorage, Fairfield, Leming, and 

other shallow fields in the updip area. Not only did he do all of the 

mapping and selecting well locations, but also handled the entire 

well-site logging, coring, and testing on all the wells. That 

demanded a lot of his time and a lot of driving from Beeville to 

well sites. 

In 1962, the couple’s second son, Hilton, was born. In the 

meantime, Dan had rented a one-room office in downtown Beeville, 

located in the Wilson Building, a former funeral home that had 

been converted into offices. As a new independent geologist, he 

began working on other areas that were not part of the Caddo 

operation. The first of the prospects consisted of some Frio age 

formation structures located in Bee and Victoria Counties. He was 

able to buy the leases and get the prospects in a position to drill, as 

many of the land owners were residents of Beeville. Dudley 

introduced him to some of his friends in Laurel, Mississippi, two of 

which were Field Chisolm and Jimmy Morgan, who were both 

interested in investing money in Texas. Field Chisolm’s 

family owned Central Lumber Company, a large lumber company 

in Mississippi with mineral rights under a pine forest on 

approximately 25,000 acres, and who had a large income from oil 

production. Chisolm’s brother-in-law, Frank Wisner, lived in 

Washington, D.C., and also had this lumber company income. He 

was a senior diplomat working for the State Department and had 

no way of avoiding the 70 percent income tax voted in by the 

Democratic administration. 

Dan had become a good friend to John Turner, an attorney in 

Beeville who worked for Dudley Dougherty. Dougherty was part of 

89


an old Beeville family with a reputation of being strong oil operators 

in the early days, but had since become less active. Dougherty had a 

310 Cessna that was scheduled to take John to New York, and John 

invited Dan to go along. On the trip, the plane stopped in 

Washington, D.C., where his twin brother had arranged a visit with 

Frank Wisner, Field’s brother-in-law. Frank invited the group to his 

Georgetown residence for lunch with some friends who were 

interested in oil investments. Among the guests at a luncheon were 

the Secretary of the Navy who was interested in the oil business and 

Henry Sears from New York City. 

Henry owned a farm in Maryland on the eastern shore of 

Chesapeake Bay near Wisner’s farm where the two first met. Sears 

also had successful investments in the oil business and an interest in 

an oil field in Kansas. Frank invited him because he would know 

more about the oil business than the rest of the group and could 

better evaluate Dan’s presentation. After the dinner, Dan presented 

the group with some of the Frio Prospects that he had in Bee and 

Victoria Counties that were ready to drill. Even though they didn’t 

know exactly what they were looking at, they all agreed to invest a 

total of approximately $20,000 in each one. 

Back in South Texas, Dan had become good friends with Lou 

Flournoy from Alice, Texas, who owned Flournoy Drilling Company 

and had several good South Texas rigs capable of drilling the deeper 

Frio wells. With his income from New Mexico plus the override 

income from Caddo Oil Company, Dan had enough capital to 

purchase leases on his prospects and to carry his share of the 

working interest after the well was drilled. Lou Flournoy was a good 

operator and had an engineer, Harry Hill, who did the engineering 

work and operated the wells that produced. These investors put up 

enough money to pay Flournoy’s turnkey drilling costs and Dan’s 

lease costs for one-half interest in the project. In a typical deal, 

Flournoy agreed to take 25 percent interest in one of Dan’s 

prospects and, for an additional $15,000, would turnkey drill the 

well down to the casing point. Dan was to sell a one-half interest for 

that amount plus lease cost to the Sears group, thereby leaving 

himself a quarter interest. After a discovery well was drilled, all of 

90


Henry Sears from New York, principle 

investor and lifetime friend 

91 

the working interest owners 

were to pay their proportionate 

share and Dan, along with other 

income, was able to carry his 

share. Dudley and Dan agreed 

to form a 50-50 partnership in 

which they shared the New 

Mexico production and formed 

Hughes & Hughes Oil & Gas 

Partnership in which all the 

production in Texas and 

Mississippi and elsewhere would 

be shared on a 50-50 basis. His 

brother operating out of 

Mississippi had previously 

formed Triad Oil Company with 

two of his co-workers, one of 

which was an engineer and the 

other was a landman. They also 

had an investor company, 

Vaughey & Vaughey which paid 

their overhead. Triad was 

successful in finding Summerland and two or three other large oil 

fields in which the partnership had an interest. The problem was 

that Triad only kept a five percent working interest in these 

discoveries so that each parter ended up with a small interest after 

dividing the five percent among the four partners. After having 

operated the company for two years, Dudley dissolved the Triad 

partnership and future Mississippi wells were then operated by 

Hughes and Hughes. 

One of the more interesting South Texas prospects on which 

Dan worked in the early days was in Victoria County on the 

MacFaddin Ranch area. There was a small ranch of approximately 

1,000 acres, bordering the large MacFaddin Ranch, that was owned 

by the Roulette family of Kentucky, not held by oil and gas 

production. After working up a prospect, Dan made a lease with


the Roulettes and made a deal with Lou Flournoy to drill a test well 

on it. The owners of the MacFaddin Ranch generously allowed him 

to use their roads to get a drilling rig to the Roulette Lease. This 

lease was in the Guadalupe River bottom bordering the Victoria 

Canal which was being dug at that time. Flournoy constructed a 

board road, an expensive operation, for about a mile to the drilling 

location in this river bottom. A discovery well was drilled resulting 

in a good gas condensate well. The gas market was poor at that time 

and the gas sold for about nine-cents per thousand cubic feet of 

natural gas (mcf) and condensate for $3 per barrel. This was still a 

commercial operation due to the cheap cost of drilling. After 

drilling two or three wells, he had a nice operation going until the 

area had a big rain. The rain caused the river to rise through the 

area, and with the new canal embankment cutting off the east 

side of the river; water flooded his lease and washed away the 

board road. It became an expensive operation replacing the 

board road and repairing the surface equipment on the wells. 

Eventually, they rented a small iron bridge from Live Oak County 

and put it across one of the bayous. That kept the operation going, 

but it was not nearly as profitable as it should have been due to 

its location. 

In 1964 Dan and Dudley both began operating under the name 

of Hughes & Hughes Oil & Gas. The first prospects drilled with the 

Sears group at that time were on the Welder, Fox and Chestnut 

ranches in Bee and Refugio counties. The wells were 5,000 to 6,000 

feet deep and discovered several gas condensate wells in the various 

Frio sands. This gas was sold mostly to Houston Natural Gas Co. 

(HNG) but only received a payout of 11 cents per mcf, which was a 

good price at that time. C. R. (Sam) Bass, a Houston-based 

geophysicist working for Brewer and Company, presented Dan with 

a prospect he had worked up on the Mt. Lucas Field in Live Oak 

County. The old field was a highly faulted large dome from which 

HNG had built its first natural gas pipeline to Houston. Dan and 

Sam drilled several gas wells on the Holman Cartwright Ranch, but 

because of the cheap price of gas, did not make the profit they 

should have. With that operation, Dan became be good friends with 

92


Holman and Lon Cartwright and has enjoyed hunting quail on the 

22,000-acre ranch for many years. 

In 1964 Dan was elected a director on the board of the 

Commercial National Bank of Beeville. The board consisted 

primarily of ranchers, with him being the only person in the oil 

business. It was a learning experience which allowed him to become 

friends with all the ranchers serving with him. Because of the 

friendship built out of serving the community, he eventually drilled 

wells and found production on most of their ranches. The 

experience, even though it was time consuming, made him feel like 

he was a strong part of the community. He served on the board for 

nearly 20 years. In 1966 he became more involved in his personal 

business and resigned from his consulting position with Caddo Oil 

Co. The company was approximately a year behind in paying his 

consulting fees, so they parted company and he became a fullfledged 

independent. 

In the mid-60s, business was more favorable for the brothers and 

Hughes & Hughes’ Beeville office began looking beyond the 

boundaries of the Gulf Coast for prospects. Through John Turner, 

Dan met Pete Shipman, the head of the land department with Getty 

Oil Co. in their Houston office. Getty had leased a number of aerial 

photo prospects on the south flank of the San Juan Basin in the 

northwest corner of New Mexico. The old Hospah Field located in 

that area had produced approximately four million barrels of oil 

from depths of 1,500 to 1,700 feet. The exploration department of 

Getty decided to lease and drill the wild remote prospects in the 

area, looking for the same type of production. Acreage was only $2- 

to-$3 per acre in the area and Getty Oil Co. sought an independent 

operator to evaluate its acreage by contributing money to wells 

drilled, offsetting their leases. Hughes & Hughes accepted the deal 

and was permitted to buy 2,000 to 3,000 acres on each one of their 

prospects with the idea that it would drill a well offsetting the Getty 

leases and test the prospect. 

When about 15 of the drill sites had been leased, he approached 

Henry Sears and other partners about going in to the venture. 

Henry was the only one of the group interested at the time, and he 

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asked if his friend Joe Bryan from South Carolina could join the 

group. Joe was in a 70 percent tax bracket situation and was looking 

for an investment in lieu of paying high taxes to the government. 

The two of them, along with two of the Shearman sons-in-law, joined 

the Hughes and 25 wells were drilled to test the prospects in this 

remote area. The wells were located near the Continental Divide at 

an altitude of about 7,000 feet in northwestern New Mexico. Pete 

Murphy Drilling Co. from Alice, Texas, had one shallow drilling rig 

that he personally operated. Pete, who had drilled for the Hughes 

in South Texas, indicated an interest in moving the rig to New 

Mexico and drilling the wells. Pete moved his rig from Texas to the 

remote area of New Mexico along with trailer houses and the 

supporting equipment, and lived in the field with his wife and crews 

during the entire operation. A furnished house was rented in 

Durango, Colorado, and Dan, along with some of his investors, used 

it whenever they were working in the area. Although it was about a 

100-mile drive to the drilling sites, they found Durango an exciting 

old mining town and was also the home of the geologist who 

developed the prospects. As drilling progressed, the base of 

operations was eventually moved to Gallup, New Mexico, which was 

closer to the drill sites. The operation was satisfactory, but all the 

wells proved unsuccessful with Getty Oil Co. contributing enough 

dry hole money on each test to pay for the operation. Each party 

came out successfully financially, and a lot of experience was gained 

even if they didn’t strike oil. Eventually, after about 15 wells, oil 

sands were encountered in one well that caused a lot of excitement. 

A shallow air drilling rig was brought in from West Texas and a series 

of core tests were drilled around the well in an effort to map the 

structure. The Hospah sand was saturated with oil but their 

completion attempt failed to make it produce. The problem was 

that the viscosity and the pour point of the oil at the temperature 

of the formation were higher than the cold bottom-hole 

temperatures. The oil would bleed out of the core when it was 

brought to the surface, but due to the high altitude, the formation 

temperature was too cold for the oil to flow. After drilling about 25 

additional wells and core tests, the project was finally abandoned. 

94


The brothers and partners were happy because Getty Oil Co. paid 

for most of work; and Getty was happy because Hughes had 

evaluated all its prospects. Though unsuccessful, it was a great 

educational experience and all were satisfied with the operations. 

Learning how to operate in a remote area later proved to be valued 

in some of Dan’s foreign operations. 

During the summer months of that operation, Dan, Jody, and 

the children visited Durango where they spent several weeks 

sightseeing and touring. In their spare time, they took trips into 

the mountains. They fell in love with the mountains, and had a 

great vacation. The mountain areas would later prove beneficial to 

Dan in property ownership with aspects of drilling as well as 

hunting game. 

Bob Gowdy of San Antonio, a friend of Dan’s, worked for 

Monterrey Oil Co., and was transferred to Calgary, Canada, in the 

early 1960s. After a period in Calgary, he invited Dan and several 

friends to Calgary to see the oil business in that area. Bob had just 

married a Canadian Irish girl, and, together with her father who was 

a drilling contractor, wined and dined them for several days. Dan 

found himself impressed with the frontier town and the oil activity 

there. Bob had just become an independent and formed a 

partnership with J. C. Anderson. Bob, being a geologist, and 

Anderson a petroleum engineer, set up a company called Anderson 

Exploration and proceeded to work out several prospects in the 

Alberta Province. These were in the Peace River Uplift area, about 

400 miles northwest of Calgary, which was very wild and remote. Dan 

was impressed. 

Upon returning to Beeville, Dan began concentrating on the 

wilder areas that had not been drilled around South Texas. One of 

these areas in Webb County approximately 30 miles north of Laredo, 

was a vast area on which a few dry holes had been drilled, some with 

gas shows. John C. Beasley, a Beeville friend and attorney, had a ranch 

in that area. When he found out Dan was interested, he invited him 

to his ranch for a weekend of hunting. John showed him around the 

ranch and they came upon an old well casing sticking out of the 

ground. John said “watch this” and lit a match and threw it in to the 

95


The stagecoach stop at Las Tiendas originally named Las Tiendas de Campana (the 

Tents)for cavalry stopovers in the area during pre-Civil War era 

casing. A three feet tall 

fire flared out of the 

casing. It was definitely 

natural gas seeping out 

of the well. On 

returning to Beeville, he 

became intensely 

interested in the area 

and obtained some 

seismic records covering 

the Beasley Ranch and 

surrounding area. He 

got C. R. Sam Bass in 

Houston to interpret 

Dan Allen, Keleigh, and Hilton on Hughes & Hughes, 

Martin #1 in Las Tiendas circa 1967 

the records. Although he was interested in the shallow Wilcox, the 

only seismic reflection that he could find to map on was the top of 

the Cretaceous at about 6,000 feet. Sam came up with a large flat area 

but could show no closure that would trap the gas. Dan began 

reworking well logs in the area and noticed that the Wilcox sands built 

up thicker over parts of the structure than other areas. By isopacing 

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A structure map on the 3,000-foot Wilcox producing sand in the Las Tiendas Field. 

97


the interval between the top of the Wilcox and the top of the seismic 

Cretaceous, he was able to come up with a large flat lower relief 

structure that covered about 11,000 acres. With the gas shows in the 

old wells, he became convinced that he had found a large gas field. 

Dan contacted J. Donald Jordan, a lease broker and friend from 

Cotulla, and was able to lease approximately 15,000 acres around this 

structure at a cost of approximately $2-$3 dollars per acre with the 

leases being all one-eighth royalty except for one or two small farm 

ins. Prior to this, he had leased the Booth Ranch, which was about 

five miles to the north of the Beasley Ranch. There was some seismic 

on the Booth that indicated relatively small Wilcox closures. The first 

wells drilled were the #1 and #2 Booth locations on this 7,000-acre 

ranch. Each well had a gas sand about 2,800 feet deep, but the sand 

was only about 10 feet thick and the nearest pipeline was 50 miles 

away. These wells were temporarily plugged as it was not economically 

feasible to try to get a pipeline for that amount of gas. Following that, 

he drilled the #1 Beasley-Connevey well on the Las Tiendas structure. 

The well was located near the one where gas burned from the casing 

which he observed on his first visit to the ranch. This well drilled 

through the first pay sand, was drill-stem tested, and flowed gas 

immediately. Following that, several other tests were made on deeper 

sands. Each one flowed gas and the well ended up with five or six gas 

sands and a total foot of pay among all these sands of about 100 feet. 

These sands were prolific and built up to 500 pounds flowing on the 

surface on a drill-stem test in less than 10 minutes at which point they 

were shut in. Even though it was relatively shallow, the size of the 

structure indicated that they could have found a large discovery and 

one that would certainly warrant a pipeline. 

Following the well, and in order to prove that this was a large 

structure, four more wells were drilled, each a mile or two away from 

the first well in different directions. These were all completed as gas 

wells. With this data, Dan began talking to various pipeline companies 

about laying a pipeline into the area in which to tie the wells. This 

field was of interest to nearly all the gas transmission companies, and 

after bargaining with several, Hughes & Hughes signed a contract 

with Houston Natural Gas Co. Houston Natural Gas agreed to 

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advance them enough money on each producing well and on future 

wells drilled to encourage quick development of the field. The 

development wells cost approximately $15,000 to drill and complete. 

The advanced interest free funding was to be repaid out of 50 percent 

of the gas sales when the wells came online. After drilling and 

completing approximately 20 wells, Houston Natural constructed a 

114-mile pipeline from Mt. Lucas near George West to this Las 

Tiendas Field. HNG also laid a large gathering system throughout the 

field so that Hughes had only to tie in the wells a short distance from 

the pipeline. It agreed to pay 16-cents per thousand cubic feet for the 

gas produced which was a good price at that time. The field was 

probably the major turning point in Dan’s career that gave him the 

cash flow to explore on a much larger basis than he had previously. 

Following that discovery, Dan also worked an area east of 

Pleasanton in Atascosa County. Sam Bass, his consulting geophysicist, 

had worked some old records and came up with a structure along the 

graben fault zone that runs through the area. This structure was 

almost identical to the Velma Field which had been discovered 

previously near that area, but was practically non-commercial because 

it was over-drilled by many competing wells. Dan was able to lease all 

the area that covered the structure through J. Donald Jordan, his 

broker from Cotulla. After studying the Velma Field, he realized that 

it would be necessary to drill the structure on a larger spacing in order 

to have the reserves to make it a profitable venture. The first well 

drilled, cored the Escondido sand, which produced in the other field 

and found it consisted of a series of clean stringer oil sands encased 

in a sandy shale sequence. By perforating these clean streaks and 

fracing the well, the well came in producing about 80 barrels of oil 

per day of relatively high gravity oil. After a hearing by the Railroad 

Commission, they obtained a rule whereby the field could develop 

on 160-acre spacing and, thereby, have an ample drainage area for 

the shaly sand. It turned out to be a profitable field and ended up 

with 10 producing wells on 160-acre spacing. This field was later water 

flooded and responded well to the water flood. In 1981, after 20 years 

of production, the wells had declined to seven or eight barrels a day 

each and Sun Oil Co. approached the Hughes to purchase it for a 

99


tertiary flood program. The field was sold to Sun for $3.5 million, 

which was a good price at the time, and Dan retained the deep rights. 

Several years later, he drilled a deeper Edwards’ formation well on 

Joe Bryan’s Annual Shooting at Rolling Rock in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Joe Bryan (at the 

head of the table) hosted the evening’s formal dinner. 

The Rolling Rock Shooting Group, c. 1987. 

100


The Florence Club, Gueydan, Louisiana. 

George Crocker receiving the Queen’s Award for New Industry at the Perchem plant in Harlow, 

England outside London. Dan and Dudley owned a controlling interest in Perchem. 

101


Dan with Tobin Armstrong at Rolling Rock in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, 1986. 

(Left to right) Dudley Hughes, Hugh Shearman, Joe Bryan, and Dan Hughes , c. the 

mid 1980’s. 

102


the southeast side of the leases and discovered a prolific flowing 

Edwards’ oil well at a depth of 7,500 feet. Six additional wells were 

drilled on this structure and the area eventually produced as much 

oil as the original East Pleasanton Escondido Field. The investors in 

both the Las Tiendas Field and the East Pleasanton Field were Henry 

Sears from New York City, Joe Bryan from Greensboro, North 

Carolina, and the Shearman family from Lake Charles, Louisiana. 

These investors proved to be substantial and reliable. They became 

great friends and the three became Hughes’ primary investors for the 

next 20 years. The oil game is a cash intensive business that can 

require large sums of money on short notice when a good prospect 

presents itself. Dan believes that if an individual is successful and 

treats his investors in a fair manner, they remain solid forever. 

Each person in the group had different interests in hunting and 

the outdoors, so they began a series of hunting trips to various places. 

Henry Sears had a large farm and ranch on the east shore of 

Maryland on Chesapeake Bay which had excellent pheasant and duck 

hunting and a sophisticated lifestyle. Dan, Dudley, and the investment 

group, visited often on weekends during the hunting season. 

Joe Bryan was a member of the Rolling Rock Club in Latrobe, 

Pennsylvania, which was the old Melon Estate of about 23,000 acres. 

Each year, as the leaves changed in September, he invited the group 

for a weekend during which they would shoot pheasants over dogs 

in the morning and driven pheasants and ducks in the afternoon. 

The evenings at Rolling Rock were formal black tie dinners and the 

guests included several prominent men from New York and Boston. 

Two of these were Charlie Adams, head of the Quincy Trust, and a 

direct descendant of John Quincy Adams, and Bob Winthrop, whose 

great-great grandfather was the first governor of Pennsylvania. 

There were several others along the same vintage. 

Tom Shearman, an investor from Lake Charles, had a 

membership in the Florence Club in Gueydan, Louisiana, which was 

a great duck hunting area. The facility had a large, three-story 

cypress clubhouse in the marshes with canals, and provided with 

Cajun guides, boats and pirogues. Hunters were treated like 

southern gentlemen in this club with its service and southern 

103


cooking. The hunting group included Joe Bryan, Tom and Hugh 

Shearman, Henry Sears, Dan and Dudley. Chesley Pruet, Dudley’s 

partner from Mississippi, joined the group in later hunts. 

In 1967 Dan and his wife attended the American Association of 

Petroleum Geologists’ meeting in Brighton, England. This trip also 

included a tour of mainland Europe, being their first trip there. 

While in London, they visited George Crocker, a Texas A&M 

classmate who was also a geology major. He had gone to work for 

Baroid Mud Co. in South America following college graduation. 

After the South American work, he traveled to Europe and was 

assigned for a period of time in Rome. At this particular time, 

however, he was back in London operating for Baroid there. 

George later offered Dan a proposition in which he requested 

support in forming a chemical company that was to be named 

Perchem. He had developed a cheap process to make drilling mud 

that used bentonite which reacted with animal fat and became an 

oil base drilling mud. The product was also used for oil-based 

paints. Dan agreed, and George constructed a plant outside of 

London in the town of Harlow. It was the largest of their plants and 

primarily produced oil-based drilling mud. A large drilling boom 

was taking place in the North Sea at the time, and the company 

furnished the mud for Macobar, which was a brand of drilling mud 

that was popular in the North Sea operations. Perchem also had 

minor chemical plants in Italy, one in Caprinca outside of Rome, 

one in Milan, and one in Switzerland near Zurich. These were all 

smaller plants that primarily made bases for paint. All proved to be 

successful from Dan and Dudley’s original small investment which 

was mostly financed with guaranteed loans. 

104


1968 

CANADA 

Upon returning to the United States, Dan was visited by Bob 

Gowdy, whom he had visited in Canada a few months earlier. Gowdy 

and J. C. Anderson had their Peace River prospects ready 

to drill and needed a partner. With the twins’ success in the 

Las Tiendas Field and East Pleasanton Field, and Dudley’s wells 

in Mississippi, it was decided they could afford to invest in the 

wild venture. Because it was going to cost about $100,000, which 

was a lot of money at that time, they invited Walter Brown, a 

friend from San Antonio, to join them. He took one half of the 

interest, which he shared with his uncle who provided most of his 

investment money. 

The first well was drilled in this Peace River area of Alberta, 

Canada, and resulted in a discovery that was designated “Dunvegan 

Field”. This first well, even though Dan did not realize at the time, 

discovered a gas field containing 1.6 trillion cubic feet of gas 

condensate at a depth of approximately 6,000 feet. The field 

eventually became about 25 miles long and four miles wide. The 

field was quite a distance from any gas pipeline, but due to the 

magnitude of the field, J. C. Anderson made a contract with Alberta 

Southern Gas Company to advance them money on the 

development of the field. This was to help the company determine 

the gas reserves of the field before building a pipeline into the 

remote area. 

The contract called for Alberta Southern to advance the group 

two-cents per thousand cubic feet of the calculated gas discovered 

as each well was drilled. The contract paid 24-cents per thousand 

cubic feet of gas when it was produced, and had an escalating price 

over a period of time. The interest free loan was paid back as the 

wells were produced out of 25 percent of the gas revenues after the 

pipeline was constructed. The gas was rich in liquids and a large 

plant was built to strip the liquids out of the gas which turned out 

to be most profitable. Following this discovery, Bob Gowdy and J. C. 

105


Anderson drilled seven other prospects in which Dan and Dudley 

participated, and all of which produced. Most of these were gas 

condensate but one was an oil discovery. None, however, were on 

the scale of the Dunvegan Field. Dan made frequent trips to Calgary 

during the development of the fields and had great times with his 

friends in Calgary. 

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Dan Hughes biography-chapter 12a_Layout 1 2/16/2016 11:15 AM Page 107 

SOUTH TEXAS 

Back home in Beeville, Dan worked on deeper and larger 

prospects. J. B. Storey, who had been his boss at Union Producing 

Company in New Orleans, resigned from that company and 

accepted a job as president of Southdown Sugar Co., which had 

thousands of acres of fee land in south Louisiana. These lands 

became valuable because of the oil and gas production that was 

found beneath them. J. B. approached Dan about investing in some 

of Dan’s Texas prospects. Because Hughes was drilling deeper and 

more expensive programs, Dan invited him to invest along with his 

other group of Shearmans, Sears, and Bryan. 

Wallace McKinney, a director at Commercial National Bank, 

approached him about drilling a well on his ranch just north of 

Beeville. An old well had been drilled to approximately 8,000 feet 

on his ranch and had seven-inch casing set in it. His idea was to drill 

the well deeper and see what was below the depth that it had been 

abandoned. After studying the geology, it looked like a good idea. 

Dan took the deal to his group of investors, and then deepened the 

well to a depth of 10,440 feet. A series of sands were encountered 

that had good oil and gas shows, but were still below the gas-water 

contacts. These sands had not been discovered in the area and Dan 

realized that these might be developed into a new series of possible 

producing zones. A second well was drilled that cut the trapping 

fault at a lower spot and got substantially higher structurally. The 

well found a prolific 50-foot gas sand at about 9,000 feet. This was 

the first production that Dan was able to establish that was 

considered deep at the time. Following this success, he began 

drilling deeper and larger prospects and, with the investors, had a 

successful group of discoveries. 

When Dan moved to Beeville in 1954, the only thing that he 

owned at the time was an automobile which he had purchased 

following his army discharge. Shortly after arriving in Beeville, he 

purchased a 100-acre Veterans Land tract in Dimmit County, Texas. 

It was financed by the State of Texas with its new Veterans Land 

107


Program for World War II and Korean Veterans. In 1970, after the 

successful oil activity that he had in Canada, South Texas and 

Mississippi, he decided to purchase additional land. The first 

purchase that he made was from Dan Fox in Bee County being 200 

acres out of Fox’s ranch bordering the Medio Creek. It was a good 

hunting area located about three miles off the main highway. He 

fenced the land, built a campsite where he and his family spent time 

hunting and enjoying the outdoors. 

As the company began to expand, Dan decided that he needed 

an office designed to his specific type of operation. He purchased a 

corner lot on East Houston Street, and with the aid of a local 

architect, built a small square office building. It was large enough 

to house his operations, and he was able to lease half of it to another 

local oil company. It was a convenient building and the company 

has occupied it since, making additions over the years to keep pace 

with the growing business. It is now 33,000 square feet. 

The development in Canada was going well at the time, and Dan 

decided to give Bob Gowdy a present for getting him into such 

lucrative deals. He and his wife, Jody, invited Bob and his wife to go 

with them on a three-week vacation and tour in Europe. It was a 

well-organized trip with the tour through some of the same areas 

that he and Jody had visited three years earlier. There were about 

15 members in the group and they quickly became good friends. 

Several future tours were taken with the Gowdys in Europe, Asia, 

and the South Seas. This exposure to foreign countries gave Dan 

the desire to explore for oil outside of the U.S. 

Back home in Beeville, operations grew and he realized that in 

order to cover the large area, it would be advantageous to have an 

airplane. In 1971 Dan purchased the first airplane for Beeville which 

was a new Cessna 210. A young navy pilot by the name of Barry 

O’Neil, from Chase Field Naval Base, had just gotten out of the 

military and approached him for a job flying the plane. He was 

hired, and they began flying throughout South and West Texas 

scouting out oil prospects. The pilot was a little on the wild side and 

this led to some interesting adventures. About a year later, John 

Beasley, his lawyer friend, informed him that a mutual friend, Dan 

108


Orient Trip. Dan and Jody Hughes and Bob and Carol Gowdy on a trip to Bangkok, 

Thailand, 1972. 

Floeck, had bought a new Beechcraft Baron. Floeck had decided 

that he needed a smaller plane because of frequent trips to Mexico 

where there were small landing strips. He flew the Baron to Beeville 

and the two inspected each other’s planes. Floeck made the trade 

of his Beechcraft Baron twin-engine plane for Dan’s single-engine 

210, plus a little additional money. The plane proved to be an 

enhancement to the Hughes’ South Texas operations. 

Raymond Welder’s family had a surface grazing lease on the 

5,000-acre Chesnutt Ranch located on the Refugio Highway 

bordering the Fox tract that he had purchased a year or so earlier. 

He leased Dan the hunting rights on 1,700 acres of the ranch for 

several years. In 1972 he informed Dan that Bill Chesnutt wanted 

to sell his one-quarter undivided interest in the entire 5,000-acre 

ranch. Dan agreed to purchase it for $225 per acre. It was a beautiful 

ranch and bordered 200 acres that he owned on the Fox tract across 

the Medio Creek. The quarter interest was undivided under the 

entire ranch, but he made a deal with the rest of the Chesnutt family 

to use the 1,700-acre pasture offsetting his Fox tract and it was 

considered Dan’s ranch. It was a great hunting place which he 

109


enjoyed for many years, taking many of his oil investors and friends 

there for shooting excursions. 

Dan and Dudley were approached by Edwards Bates & Co., an 

English banking company, to purchase all of Dudley’s producing 

wells in Mississippi and Dan’s in South Texas. After an evaluation of 

all the wells, the company preferred the deeper Mississippi oil wells 

to the shallow wells in South Texas. The offer to buy was too low in 

South Texas, but they agreed to sell the Mississippi production. With 

the cash in hand, Dan and Dudley paid off all debts. 

Following that venture, Dan continued exploration in South 

Texas and discovered many fields including the SE Pettus Field on 

McKinney land, belonging to a cousin of his first W. E. McKinney 

discovery. It turned out to be a lucrative 30 billion cubic foot gas 

condensate field and produced for many years. Following that, Sam 

Bass and Dan began a program working seismic in the bay area 

between Padre Island and the mainland in Kenedy County, near the 

King Ranch. A series of structures were defined in the shallow bay 

Dan in front of Guadalupe Peak near the Apache Ranch purchase. 

110


water. After dredging canals, three gas condensate fields were 

discovered in the Potrero Lopeno and Port Mansfield areas. These 

proved to be profitable and added significantly to the Hughes’ 

Company. Other sizeable gas fields discovered during this period 

were the Berry R. Cox Wilcox Field in Zapata and Jim Hogg 

Counties and the Tom M. Shearman Wilcox Field in Webb County. 

In 1975 he purchased the 33,000-acre Apache Ranch in 

Culberson County, Texas, located about 120 miles east of El Paso 

for $29 per deeded acre. While stationed in the Army in El Paso, 

he had become fond of that semi-arid land. Dudley agreed to take 

an interest in the ranch with him. Tony Kunitz, a pipeline 

contractor and friend from Sinton, Texas, agreed to buy an interest, 

as did L. D. Hunter, his quail hunting Beeville friend. Final 

ownership was 45 percent to Tony Kunitz, 22.5 percent to Dan, 22.5 

percent to Dudley, and 10 percent to L. D. Hunter. After a few 

years, Dan succeeded in buying out all the partners including 

Dudley, so that he owned 100 percent of the entire ranch. 

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ENGLISH SHOOTING 

For many years, his eastern friends and investors, Henry Sears 

and Joe Bryan, had been going to England on shooting trips. In 

1976, they invited Dan and his wife to join them on an English 

shoot. It was a formal, outdoor occasion in which the men wore 

shooting suits and ties. Dinner at night consisted of a formal, blacktie 

dinner. On the first trip, they lodged with Lord Kenneth Keith 

on his estate in the Norfolk area of England. He was the chairman 

of the Rolls Royce aviation division of that English corporation. He 

had been appointed by England’s Prime Minister Margaret 

Thatcher to help privatize that corporation after it being 

nationalized by the former socialized government. Most of the 

shooting occurred on the Earl of Lichester’s Estate of 

approximately 25,000 acres and a large mansion called Holkham 

Hall surrounded by gardens. This grand house was built in the 

1700s. This estate was originally owned by the Duke of Norfolk, but 

was repossessed by King Henry VIII in the sixteenth century 

because the Duke refused to renounce the Catholic Religion and 

accept the new Church of England. 

Ironically, after shooting at Holkham and other English-Scottish 

estates, Dan met Eddy (Howard) Arundel, whose father was the 

present Duke of Norfolk. He invited Dan’s group to shoot at his 

father’s estate on the grounds of Arundel Castle, located about 100 

miles southwest of London. He was a young man, just out of college, 

and was trying to take over the management of the estate. After the 

family lost its Norfolk Estate in the 1500s, a later king had awarded 

the Duke the large coastal estate which included Arundel Castle. 

Dan’s group accepted his invitation and spent a week shooting there 

for the next 25 years. 

During that time, Dan watched Lord Eddy get married, have 

children and become the Duke of Norfolk when his father died. He 

is now leader of the House of Lords in Parliament and heir to the 

throne of England if something should happen to the present 

Windsor heirs. Through the years, he and Dan have become good 

112


The rear entrance and courtyard to Amberley Castle with the shooting group. 

The Duke of Norfolk (at the head of the table) and shooting group at dinner at 

Arundel Castle 

113


The Duke of Norfolk with his young son, 

c. 1995 

The Duke of Norfolk with a retrieving dog. 

Dan with a gun loader. 

Dan and David Hooker enjoying a 

midmorning break from shooting. 

114


Arundel Castle. 

The courtyard of Arundel Castle. 

friends and had many grand lunches in the castle during the shoots. 

A day’s shooting consisted of seven or eight stands or drives 

around the estate in which a series of young beaters would beat the 

fields and forest driving the pheasants and partridges over their line 

of guns. That was repeated in different areas so that there would be 

new birds in each drive. A late lunch was served out in the field in a 

grand manner in smaller outlying buildings. After the shooting was 

over, there was an elaborate dinner back at Lord Kenneth Keith’s 

115


The main gate Amberley Castle 

The courtyard of Amberley Castle, an outpost castle to Arundel, which houses 

shooting guests. 

estate. This was the beginning of Dan’s England and Scotland 

shootings. He pursued shoots every fall and winter for the next 30 

years or more. 

During that period, Dan made many trips to Canada representing 

116


Hughes’ oil and gas development there. Several fishing trips were 

taken in that country during the years that his gas fields were being 

developed. One in particular, was taken with Alan Smith, Bill 

Harwood and Dan’s son, Hilton. From Calgary, they flew as far north 

as they could in their Mitsubishi. From there, they took float planes 

and traveled into the Arctic Circle to the Great Bear Lake. That lake 

is frozen over during most of the winter, but thaws out for a few 

weeks during the summer. The group stayed at a lodge, there, and 

fished on the lake which is about 200 miles long with granite knobs 

protruding above water. Lake trout was the primary fish caught. 

After catching many lake fish, the group then took float planes up 

to the Copper Mine River which flows into the Arctic Sea, and 

caught Arctic char. 

Following the sale of the Mississippi Hughes and Hughes 

operations to the English company, Dudley joined Chesley Pruet to 

form a company called Pruet & Hughes in which Chesley would 

have half interest and Dan and Dudley jointly held ownership of the 

other half. This company was successful in finding several 

Smackover oil fields and various other fields in Mississippi and 

Alabama. The original purpose of this company was to build a 

corporation which would go public when a certain amount of 

production was developed. However in 1975, this company was 

offered $25 million for its production by the French oil company 

Elf Acquataine and the two accepted the deal. After the sale was 

completed and the debts of the company paid off, their share of the 

proceeds amounted to about $12 million. Dudley kept 

approximately $8.5 million in Mississippi and sent $3.5 million to 

Beeville. Hindsight shows that this was a bad deal due to rapid 

escalation of oil and gas prices after the sale. Within the two or three 

years, oil and gas prices doubled and continued escalating so that 

the purchaser paid its investment back much quicker than originally 

calculated. Also, the petroleum reserves in the fields proved to be 

much larger than the engineers had determined at the time of the 

sale. Some of the fields, in their stripper stages, are producing today, 

40 years later. 

117


AUSTRALIA 

While on a shooting trip to England in 1978, Dan visited David 

Hooker, a friend and consulting geologist in London who had been 

involved in the sale of the Hughes production to the British Edwards, 

Bates & Co. He told Dan about a geologist who had just moved to 

London from Australia and who had several oil and gas prospects in 

that country. The following day, Dan reviewed the prospects and 

selected one in Western Australia located 175 miles north of the city 

of Perth. It was agreed that Hooker and his associate would obtain 

all of the available seismic and data on the permit and that Dan 

would return to London in two weeks to examine it. After returning 

to Texas, Dan was able to persuade Sam Bass to fly back to London 

with him to work the geophysical data. It was almost Christmas so it 

was agreed to travel over and back on the Concord. After reviewing 

the seismic, several prospective areas were located and a proposal 

was made. The Exploration Permit appeared to have a good 

potential for gas production and the city of Perth was short on its gas 

supply at the time. Only one gas field was supplying the Perth area 

and it was beginning to deplete. The permit contained 2.8 million 

Woodada Gas Field, West Australia, 1979. 

118


Discover well #1, Woodada, Woodada Gas Field, 

175 miles north of Perth, Australia, flowing 

thirty million mcf/day, 1979. 

119 

acres and its entire length 

was crossed by the pipeline 

that supplied Perth 175 miles 

to the south. After doing one 

summer of geophysical work, 

Dan and Dudley selected a 

location to drill a wildcat well 

on the permit. His deal with 

the Australians, which 

consisted of several small 

independents who owned 

the permit, was to do the 

required seismic and drill the 

initial test well to earn 65 percent interest in the entire block. After 

a tedious learning experience on how to operate in the remote area 

of outback Australia, Dan finally moved in a rig and began drilling 

the first well. 

Meanwhile, his company had signed up for a commitment to buy 

a Japanese jet airplane that was being developed in that country. 

The jet was to replace the Japanese Mitsubishi turboprop, which it 

currently owned. The Japanese aviation company gave Dan and Jody 

a free, first class trip to Japan to inspect the factory and all of the 

Mitsubishi operations. After completing the tour, he boarded a 

plane going to Perth, Australia, and while enroute, read a current 

Australian newspaper. One of the headlines was “New Gas Discovery 

in Perth Basin”. It turned out to be his well. 

This exploration was operated out of the Beeville office as was 

the Canadian venture, but in order to develop the field, it became 

necessary to set up an office in Perth. A consultant geologist named 

Keith Norland was hired as manager. He set up an elaborate office 

and hired approximately 15 people, including geophysicists and a 

field engineer named Bevan Cook. The first well had been drilled 

to the Permian formation at about 8,200 feet and flowed gas on a 

drill stem test. After casing was set and the well perforated and 

acidized, it tested 32 million cubic feet of gas a day on a one-inch 

choke. That test created a large flare which was shown on the


Australian television stations and created quite a bit of excitement 

among the petroleum companies in Australia and was named the 

Woodada Field. As it happened, it was the first Permian reef 

production found in Australia. After that discovery, two 

development wells were drilled, and each well tested similar to the 

first well. A twelve-mile pipeline was built to tie the wells into the 

main gas line going to Perth. 

At that point, the Hughes had earned a 65 percent interest in the 

permit. As the pipeline was being constructed, Dan received a call 

while in Beeville from Canberra, Australia, the national capital. One 

of the ministers in the oil and gas division asked if he was a U.S. 

citizen to which he answered, “yes”. He also asked if his brother was 

a U.S. citizen to which also responded, “yes”. The man stated that 

Australia could only allow foreigners to own 50 percent in the 

permit whereas the records indicated they owned 65 percent. 

Dan and Dudley protested, but it did no good and they were 

forced to put 15 percent of their interest up for sale to an 

Australian company. At that point, they had already invested about 

$3 million. He and Dudley had no partners in the deal except the 

Australians from which they had acquired the exploration permit. 

After a short period, they sold the 15 percent interest for 

Dan A. Hughes, termite mounds near Broome, Australia, 2000. 

120


approximately $25 million. There was no capital gain tax in 

Australia but they had to pay a small capital gains tax in the United 

States. While developing and producing the field, Dan became 

aware that the large Keith Norland staff in the Australia office 

was doing little work. Dan’s son, Dan Allen, graduated from Texas 

A&M University in 1980, and was assigned to the Australian office 

to work for a few months to determine what was going on. As it 

turned out there was only one person doing any real work and it 

was Bevan Cook, the field engineer. Duane Baker, the general 

manager from Beeville, was sent to Perth where he fired everyone 

in the office except Bevan and his secretary. It turned out that as 

much work was done without the big staff as with it without any 

serious problems. 

Perth, Australia, is one of the most outstanding and beautiful 

cities in the world. It has an excellent climate and the people are 

very friendly. The area is very prosperous and extends down to the 

industrialized sea port of Fremantle. It is also remote, being on the 

opposite side of the globe from Beeville. During the company’s five 

years of operations there, Dan traveled to the city many times. 

These trips would go around the world since it was the same 

distance either way. Also, a person gets a 40% discount on the first 

class fare if you go around the world. Stops were made on the way 

Dan A. Hughes, Sydney Harbor, Australia, 2000. 

121


back in Italy or England, to 

check on the Perchem company 

and the Wyck Hill Hotel. Many 

friends were made along the 

way. 

Several gas discoveries were 

made in the northwestern shelf 

of Australia by other companies 

in its shallow water offshore 

province. Perth was still short 

on gas even with their discovery 

which had delivered gas to the 

city for four years. The Australia 

government built a 1,500-mile 

pipeline from Perth north to 

these offshore gas fields. In 

doing so, the state committed to 

Hughes & Hughes Australia, PTY LTD, 

c. 2000. 

buy more gas than the city could use. As a result, the Mines 

Department required Hughes to cut the production on its wells to 

just enough to pay the overhead where this offshore gas could 

replace theirs. 

That move hurt Hughes’ profitable operation. Midland Brick 

Co. had a factory in Perth that used ten million cubic feet of gas a 

day. Dan entertained the company’s owner, Rick New and his 

wife at his Quemado Ranch in Texas and made a deal. If an 

Australian company owned its own gas, the government could not 

stop them from using it. So the Hughes, in turn, sold their interest 

in the field to Midland Brick Co. for another $25 million. This 

Australian Woodada Gas Field venture was an exciting 

accomplishment and resulted in another grand payday. 

Upon completion of this transaction, the Hughes greatly 

reduced the size of the Perth office and temporarily suspended 

operations in Australia. 

Several years later, Dan took another project in Australia and 

drilled three rank wildcat wells in the northwestern sand dune area, 

east of Broome in the Canning Basin. They were dry holes but 

122


Hughes gained valuable experience, particularly in drilling and 

building about 180 miles of roads through the sand dunes. Later 

the Beeville office acquired exploration permits in the Cooper 

Basin and drilled a well which tested some oil and gas but in noncommercial 

quantities. They have since sold that permit and 

retained an override on it. 

Continuing the exploration back in Beeville, they acquired a 

lease on the 23,000-acre Parkey Ranch in north Texas in Archer 

County. After an extensive seismic program, a number of small 

prospects were located. Several producing oil wells were drilled on 

these structures but most of those went to water quickly. One field 

proved to be a commercial discovery. The price of oil was going up 

and a company from San Antonio became interested in the ranch. 

This lease was sold to them for $5 million, which cleared their 

investment and they made a nice profit. 

By 1982, Dan and Dudley’s children were grown, and in order 

to get them involved in their respective businesses, the brothers 

dissolved the Hughes & Hughes Partnership. From that date on, 

they each operated individually. At times they would still participate 

in one another’s prospects, however, they have no joint interests 

automatically as it was originally. 

123


TEXAS RANCHES 

Operations were going well in the Beeville office, and he had an 

opportunity to buy another ranch in West Texas in Culberson County 

located about 150 miles southeast of El Paso. The 44,000-acre ranch 

which he called the Kent Ranch was located in the southern edge of 

the Delaware Basin. He purchased it for $40 per acre with friends Tony 

Kunitz and L. D. Hunter who were co-owners in the Apache Ranch. 

The ownership was divided so that he owned 45 percent, Tony, 45 

percent and L. D., 10 percent. All the lands provided great hunting 

for blue quail and mule deer and they enjoyed hunting there for many 

years. That particular ranch received a lot of oil and gas activity 

consisting primarily of seismic and oil and gas leases. The income from 

that activity eventually paid for the land even though it never produced 

commercially. The partners eventually sold all of their interests to Dan. 

In Bee County, Dan was able to purchase several tracts of land 

from Dickie Scott near the north end of the Beeville area. One tract 

The Quemado Ranch in Maverick and Kinney Counties, Texas. 

124


was 130 acres which is what is now called the pipe yard and a series 

of pipe racks were constructed there to store pipe and other oilfield 

equipment. Another of the tracts was cut off from the main Scott 

Ranch by the by-pass that was built around Beeville. The tract 

consisted approximately of 120 acres located west of the highway 

and bordered on the east end by several subdivisions. In 1978 he 

and his wife built a large house on a hill on a portion of the land 

that contained beautiful oak trees. The family then moved from 

the original house on Quail Trail to the new estate at the end of 

Kessler Lane. He also purchased the Dryden Ranch, which was 

approximately 6,000 acres in West Texas near the town of Dryden 

and the Agua Grande Ranch of 14,000 acres located in the Davis 

Mountains above the town of Balmorhea. In far West Texas, he 

purchased the Apache II Ranch which adjoins his original Apache 

Ranch and consists of approximately 8,000 acres. 

At the end of 1981, Dan traded the Agua Grande Ranch in the 

Davis Mountains for the Quemado Ranch located in Maverick 

County between the towns of Del Rio and Eagle Pass. This ranch, 

Quicksilver #3H Hughes Kent Ranch, Kent Ranch, Culberson County, Texas, 2007. 

125


Quemado Ranch, 1985. (Left to right) Dan, Jim Turnbow, Mary Jane Turnbow, Jody 

Hughes, Billie Carl, Barbara Chiles, Lucy Bass, Clay Chiles, Sam Bass, and Bill Carl. 

Dan with George W. Bush in mid-1980s during Bush’s time in Midland. 

126


owned by Joe Brown, consisted of 12,000 acres, 10,000 of which were 

under a high deer proof fence. It had a beautiful house and the 

most remarkable part about the ranch was that it had a running 

creek fed by an Edwards Aquifer spring near Bracketville, Texas. 

The creek runs through five miles of the ranch, and it is one of the 

few ranches in south and west Texas that has running water most of 

the year. He paid additional money in the trade but it turned out to 

be a very good deal. The Quemado Ranch also had a mile-long 

airstrip to which he could fly directly from Beeville and land on the 

ranch, making it convenient. 

127


AN ENGLISH HOTEL AND 

CANADIAN SALES 

During their operation in Australia, Dan’s wife and two friends 

purchased an old 30-acre estate in England. His wife, Jody, along 

with Polly New of Beeville and Estelle Yates Holmes of San Antonio, 

remodeled an old manor house built in 1720 and made it into a 

hotel with 30 guest rooms. It was elaborately-decorated and included 

a five-star kitchen. The hotel was located in the Cotswold’s near 

Stow-on-the-Wold and was an attractive, first-class operation. 

Unfortunately, the three women who put the hotel together became 

disenchanted with the project, and his oil company took over 

operations for a period of time. One of the women approached him 

and indicated she wanted to sell her interest in the estate and hotel. 

As a result, he offered her half of what she had invested, and she 

accepted the offer. This gave the Hughes two-thirds interest in the 

project. Eventually, the other partner found a buyer for the hotel 

and the Hughes made a good profit on the transaction. When they 

purchased and remodeled the hotel, the British pound exchange 

The bar at Wyck Hill House. 

128


129


The library at Wyck Hill House. 

was approximately $1.08 to the U.S. dollar. When the hotel was sold, 

the pound had gained to $1.50 to the U.S. dollar, so there was quite 

a bit of appreciation in the pound. 

In that same period, Trudeaux, the prime minister of Canada, had 

passed some tough tax laws pertaining to foreign investors in Canada 

and, particularly in the oil business. That more or less forced the 

Hughes to sell their interest in the Dunvegan Field and other properties 

in Canada. After some bargaining, they were sold to a Canadian company 

for approximately $33 million. Again, there were no partners. The 

sale contained a provision whereby after 10 years, the Hughes’ were to 

come back for a 20 percent overriding royalty interest in the properties. 

The price of gas dropped to a new low for several years, and 10 years 

after the sale, the 

field still contained 

60 percent of its 

original reserves. 

When their override 

kicked in in 

1992, they started 

receiving substantial 

checks again 

from the Canadian 

production. 

The reception lounge at Wyck Hill House. 

130


DIFFICULT TIMES 

In 1986 the price of oil crashed and it became almost noncommercial 

to even produce a well. Due to various problems, Dan’s 

marriage fell apart. While on a trip to Palm Springs during this 

period, he met John and Finn Moller from Los Angeles. John had 

a series of filling stations throughout the western states, which was 

a profitable business. Because of industry interests, they forged a 

friendship that continues. 

Dan married Carolyn Smallwood with a ceremony at his Quemado 

Ranch and, once again, settled down in Beeville. Unfortunately at that 

time, the price of oil had crashed and it was hard to keep the company 

going, particularly with him having only half-interest in everything, 

including income. From his office of 72 employees, he was forced to 

take all the production men that were on regular salaries and put them 

( From left to right) Sam Bass, Dan and Carolyn, a local vendor, Dianne Daniels, and 

Linda Haas; Istanbul, 2000. The party was enjoying a yacht cruise of Greek Islands. 

131


Isle Reaux, an island in the St. Lawrence Seaway. 

A 200-year-old French farmhouse on Isle Reaux, c. 1985. 

on a contract basis. There was not enough income to sustain the big 

operation so it was downsized to stay within budget. 

Many hunting trips were made with friends at the Quemado 

Ranch in Texas, the Florence Club Duck Camp in Louisiana, and 

shooting at Rolling Rock in Pennsylvania. Other trips were made to 

Quebec, Canada, where they shot pheasant on Isle Reaux with Alan 

132


Dan and Hugh Shearman in a waterfowl shooting pit. 

Smith and the shooting trips to England and Scotland for grouse, 

pheasant and partridge. 

He and Carolyn had a great time for the first few years. They spent 

a lot of time traveling and going on cruises in the Mediterranean and 

other areas. The couple attended a week-long tennis camp in Carmel, 

California, and, while there, met Mark McCormick and his wife, Betsey 

Nagelsen. Mark owned IMG, a company that managed sportsmen and 

A day’s bounty of pheasants. 

133


Dan shooting quail in South Texas with L.D. Hunter and Clay Chiles, 1991. 

Dan and Carolyn with Mark McCormack at the Paris Open Tennis Tournament in 

Paris, France. 

134


Dan with Michel Eyssautier, geologist who represented ELF Aquitane for sale of Pruet & 

Hughes, and Eyssautier’s wife during Paris Open Tennis Tournament in Paris, France. 

Dan with Betsey Nagelsen ,wife of Mark McCormack (far right), at the annual Pro-am 

Tennis Tournament in Maui, Hawaii. 

135


Dan, Marianne Rogers and Finn Moller, Beverly Hills, California 2001. 

Dan and Pat Moller, Beverly Hills, California, 2001. 

136


other celebrities around the world. Betsey was a professional tennis 

player. Mark invited them to come to their annual Pro-Am Tennis 

Tournament in Maui, Hawaii which was a week of intense tennis with 

pros and amateurs. They attended this for the next several years. 

Dan bought a townhouse in Beaver Creek, Colorado, and spent 

quite a bit of time in the mountains skiing and hiking. The couple 

also built a large home in Houston, but eventually the marriage 

was dissolved. 

Due to the depression in the oil business during that period, 

there had been only a small amount of properties acquired, so the 

marriage settlement with his second wife was not difficult. 

Henry Sears died in 1980, and that is when Dan purchased a 

Westwind 1, his first jet airplane. Its first trip was to Maryland to 

Henry’s wake. A few years later, Tom Shearman died, but his son 

Hugh Shearman continued to invest with the company. Joe Bryan 

also continued participating in Dan’s drilling, but gradually his 

investment group fell apart. 

After Carolyn, Dan had an active social life in his travels, but he 

eventually met Brenda Wehmeyer, whom he married in 2003. 

Brenda was a charming, younger girl and a companion to Dan in his 

outdoor hunting, fishing and ranch activities. They also took many 

trips and cruises, mostly in America and Europe. 

Years earlier, he had purchased six acres on what is called Ku Klux 

Hill on Business 181 North. It is a beautiful piece of land, one of the 

highest points in Beeville, and covered with large oak trees. He also 

purchased the adjoining lot on the north, that added another five 

acres and made a nice estate on which was built an Italian-style 

manor house. 

Unfortunately, the marriage developed problems after twelve years 

and eventually ended. 

137


Brenda & Dan in Beaver Creek, Colorado – 2003. 

The Italian Style manor house built on Ku Klux Hill by Dan and Brenda in 2003. 

138


SOUTH AMERICA AND 

COLOMBIA 

In 1996, with the oil business still in the doldrums, Dan decided 

to explore the oil possibilities in South America due to the success 

of the other foreign operations. An investment group was put 

together to finance the operation and the initial focus was on 

Bolivia. Dan Allen, Jr., was sent there, but after several months, was 

unable to find any drillable prospects. 

A study was made of other countries in South America and finally 

Dan and Dan Jr. settled upon Colombia as being the best area for oil 

exploration. Along with John Saunders and son, Dan Allen, he formed 

an operating company named Hupecol, derived from “Hughes 

Petroleum Colombia”. When the company first entered Colombia, its 

consulting geophysicist, Redge Greenburg, worked all of the 2D 

seismic that was available in the Llanos Basin. Hupecol’s first venture 

was on a concession where a wildcat well was drilled looking for a sand 

truncating up on a basement plug. The well was a dry hole mainly due 

HUPECOL – Jaguar #1, Llanos Basin, CaraCara Contract, Colombia, 2008. 

139


to the sand pinching out before reaching his location. The second 

venture was on the Tambaqui concession which consisted of a small 

fault closure structure and resulted in three producing wells. They 

were mediocre wells that eventually proved to be non-commercial, but 

it was the first oil his group had discovered in Colombia. 

The company’s first successful venture involved getting a farm-in 

from some Colombian citizens who had a concession called Cara Cara, 

issued by the Colombian government. Two consulting geologists from 

California, who had worked with Unocal on drilling some wells on this 

block many years before, were engaged. Some of the wells had good 

oil shows and tested some oil. The current owners of the permit had 

drilled three wells, but due to lack of skills in the trade, were unable to 

successfully complete them. The electric logs on the wells led Dan’s 

team to believe they could be productive. His investment group 

originally organized for Bolivia joined him and it was agreed to buy 

half-interest in the acreage for $2 million. The agreement required the 

Colombian operators to drill a well to satisfy the concession’s drilling 

obligation. His group advanced the $2 million required in the deal. 

Jack Stanley, of Good Hope Refineries, agreed to invest the $2 million 

to earn half of the groups' interest which would be a quarter interest 

in the concession. The Colombian operators put up a performance 

bond which appeared to be authentic, with the obligation to drill the 

compulsory well. A few weeks later Dan learned the operator had 

disappeared with the money and the well was not drilled. The 

concession expired and reverted to Ecopetrol, the national oil 

company of Colombia. He attempted to recover the $2 million, from 

the Colombian Performance Bond, but received only a few thousand 

dollars of it after many hassles with lawyers. This was discouraging and 

Jack Stanley, Dudley, and many others in the investment group dropped 

out of the Colombian deal, forfeiting the funds they had invested in 

the project. The remaining partners continued the exploration with 

the help of a Spanish-Mexican lawyer, Joe Vivas of San Antonio, and 

continued pursuing the prospects. The national oil company of 

Colombia, Ecopetrol, realized that the Colombian operators had 

absconded with the money. The Hughes’ representative in Colombia 

continued meeting with Ecopetrol and after a few months, were 

140


surprised by its issuing Hupecol a new permit on the Cara Cara 

concession. The company would have 100 percent of the revenue until 

payout of all operations. At that point Ecopetrol was to receive 30 

percent interest and Hupecol would retain 70 percent. That was a 

much better deal than they originally had from the Colombian outlaws. 

Redge worked the 2D seismic that was available on this Cara Cara 

permit and Dan attempted to do subsurface geology from the 

available wells and data. They both agreed that one of the plugged 

wells had several good oil shows and elected to shoot a short seismic 

line in an effort to get structurally high to that well. The line proved 

to be successful and a structurally higher well was drilled. The test 

well had several thick oil sands with an initial production of about 

1,000 barrels per day. With that success, it was decided to conduct a 

3D seismic survey of the possible producing area of the permit. That 

proved to be effective and the group had a high discovery ratio on 

future wells resulting in the drilling of approximately 40 wells in this 

general area. As the development progressed, transporting the oil by 

trucks proved to be a real burden. A 40-mile, eight-inch pipeline was 

built by Hupecol from the field to a terminal on a main pipeline to 

move the oil. This pipeline had a capacity of 22,000 barrels of oil a 

day, but after developing the field, production reached 26,000 barrels 

a day so it was necessary to continue trucking some of the oil. That 

proved to be a lucrative venture. 

After the theft of the group’s original investment in that concession 

in which a majority of partners had dropped out, the interest was 

redistributed among those remaining. Dan, Dan Allen Jr., and John 

Saunders, ended up with the largest interests based on their original 

holdings and divided up percentage according to their original 

investments. During the development phase of the prospect, John 

Saunders found it difficult to keep up with drilling and sold some of 

his interests to several different partners, some of which later proved 

to be a problem. 

With this success, Hupecol applied for other concessions from the 

Colombian government and were favorably awarded several of these. 

The company continues shooting 3D seismic surveys over these areas 

and many discovery wells have been made. 

141


BARNETT SHALE 

Meanwhile, Dan became interested in the Texas area north of 

Dallas and Fort Worth, in which his sister Jane Christian, a geologist 

from Oklahoma University, had worked for many years. He had 

drilled and participated in several wells of different types in the area, 

but failed to get any commercial production. The Barnett Shale 

appeared to cover a large part of the area and several mediocre or 

non-commercial gas wells had been completed in earlier years. 

George Mitchell, a prominent independent operator from Houston, 

had a large amount of shallow production in that area and eventually 

drilled a horizontal well in the Barnett Shale. This proved to be a 

commercial producer after sand fracing. 

After observing this development for a while, Dan took a series of 

leases in a venture with Bill Sudderth of Tyler, Texas. They initially 

purchased some federal leases that were up for bid in the area; and 

followed by buying all of the leases that were available around and 

A frac job being performed on the City of Denton Airport well in the Barnett Shale, 2004. 

142


south of the city of Denton. The group eventually began drilling the 

Barnett Shale wells and Dan A. Hughes Co. got its first taste of 

horizontal drilling. Approximately 20 wells were drilled, some more 

successful than others, particularly, the horizontal ones. One of the 

best wells was drilled under the City of Denton airport. 

After several months of production, Dan decided to sell the 

properties because the operations were difficult in such a 

highly populated area. Also, they had acquired one partner that 

proved to be unreliable and was trading leases to other parties that 

were supposed to belong to his group. The production listed for sale 

and was eventually sold to Dunes Petroleum Company for $30 

million. This was a good return on the investment, and the group 

was happy to have made the deal. The partner that had acquired 

other acreage that was in their “area of interest” was sued and, 

eventually, the company collected another $13 million, making the 

sale a total of $43 million. This proved to be an informative 

adventure and propelled Dan A. Hughes Company into the 

horizontal drilling business. 

143


KOREAN INVESTORS 

During this same period, Dan A. Hughes Company put some older 

marginal South Texas gas wells up for sale, which were purchased by 

a Korean company by the name of Woolim. The company sent a group 

of Koreans to visit the Beeville office, and they were impressed by the 

operation. The company wanted to invest with Dan A. Hughes 

Company, and it joined in the local deep Wilcox drilling program, 

which was generated be a large 3-D seismic program shot over the old 

shallow Wilcox trend in South Texas. 

The president of Woolim, Chairman Shim, came to Beeville to visit 

and the Hughes entertained him at the Quemado Ranch. Dan 

presented him with a copy of brother Dudley’s book entitled Wall of 

Fire which was written about the twins’ service in the Korean War. He 

was intrigued by the book and invited them to Korea. After several 

trips there, he introduced Dan, Dudley, Brenda, and Robbie to many 

of the old Korean generals. He had the book translated into Korean 

and held a big ceremony presenting it to them. The Korean people 

A letter of appreciation from the Republic of Korea to Dan Hughes. 

144


The Han River in Modern day Seoul, Republic of Korea 

are still very friendly and appreciative of what the United States did 

for them during and after the war. 

Prior to that event, the entourage had taken a military tour of Korea 

with some members of the 45th Division from the Korean War. They 

visited the old front line (MLR) trenches which were still occupied by 

South Korean troops with guns pointed towards the North Korean 

trenches across no-man’s-land. That had not changed since Dan and 

Dudley left in 1953. 

(From left to right) Brenda, Dan, Chairman Shim, Dudley, and Robbie at ceremony in 

Korea presenting Dudley J. Hughes’ book Wall of Fire translated into Korean. 

145


Dan, Dan Allen, and Dudley at Dan Allen’s induction into All American Wildcatters 

in 2001. 

FAYETTEVILLE SHALE 

Back on American soil and following the success in the Barnett 

Shale, Dan began working other areas with the idea of finding other 

formations that might be a source bed for horizontal drilling as the 

Barnett Shale had been. In the Arkhoma Basin, Hughes & Hughes 

had drilled a shallow well on a large lease block acquired with Ken 

McClain in the 1970s. There was an indication of some activity in the 

area on a formation called the Fayetteville Shale, which was the same 

age geologically as the Barnett Shale production. Several companies 

were leasing in the area and horizontal wells were being drilled on 

the play. 

He hired Gary Hart, an old friend and geologist from Oklahoma 

City to work on the trend for him. Gary mapped the Fayetteville 

trend, extended it into Arkansas about 40 miles ahead of the area 

that was active. Most of the land men in that area were busy, but Dan 

found Whit Porter, a landman from Mansfield, Louisiana and leased 

146


approximately 5,000 acres. The drilling eventually caught up with 

his area and the leases became so expensive that he quit buying. The 

exploration activity soon reached the area and some good gas wells 

were made. The Hughes were preparing to drill their block when 

Chesapeake Production approached them to purchase their leases. 

Aubrey McClendon was the head of Chesapeake, also one of the All 

American Wildcatters, and he approached the Hughes at a 

Wildcatter Convention in California. He bargained with Dan Allen 

and a deal was made to sell their acreage block for $14.5 million. 

Since Hughes had invested only $500,000 in the leases, they decided 

that was the best course to take, having received a great return on 

the investment. 

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COLOMBIA CARA CARA 

Operations in Colombia continued to be successful. At that point, 

it was decided to put the Cara Cara production up for sale and the 

concession was listed to be sold with Scotia Waterous. That company 

has worldwide offices in which to advertise the sale and after several 

weeks of negotiation, their production was sold to CEPSA, an oil 

company in Spain. The sale was for $925 million, but there was also 

a clause that adjusted the final sale price based on crude prices 

during the six months as the deal was being closed. Hupecol was to 

receive any additional price increase between an $85 per barrel base 

line to whatever the price might be until the deal was closed. 

During that period the price of oil reached $140 a barrel, so 

the group picked up another $70 million when the deal was 

finally closed. 

This proved to be one of the largest paydays that Dan was 

fortunate to achieve. Following this sale, several other permits were 

Dan, Dan Allen, and D.A. with the Challenger 300 at Chase Field Hangar. 

148


acquired in Colombia and Hupecol begans its 3D seismic surveys 

on these permits. 

Following this sale, the aircraft position in Dan A. Hughes 

Company was upgraded by purchasing a Challenger 300 long-range 

airplane. This plane was able to fly non-stop from Beeville to Bogota, 

Colombia. Also, it traded in the old King Air and purchased two 

newer King Air 200 planes, one of which operated part-time out of 

San Antonio. These planes were shared by Dan, Dan Allen Jr., Dan’s 

son-in-law Stuart Sasser, and occasional personnel from the office. 

With these larger aircraft, a better airport was needed from which 

to operate out of Beeville. By negotiating with local officials, a deal 

was made with Bee County to open an 8,000-foot runway at the old 

Navy Chase Field. The runway was resurfaced and runway lights 

restored. For this, Dan contributed $1.25 million and, in return, was 

granted a 10-year tax-free period on the aircraft to help offset this 

cost. 

A hangar was also constructed that was sufficient to house four 

airplanes. 

An aerial view of Chase Field after the runway restoration. 

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EAGLE FORD SHALE 

Another oil play was being developed in South Texas which involved 

horizontal drilling in the Eagle Ford Shale. Dan A. Hughes Company 

had drilled a well back in the 90s to test the Edwards formation located 

near Falls City in Karnes County. The Edwards completion proved 

non-commercial, so the well was perforated in the Eagle Ford Shale, 

which had a good oil show while drilling through that formation. The 

well initially produced approximately 80 barrels a day from the Eagle 

Ford but quit flowing. The well was treated with an acid job and finally 

settled down to produce about 10 barrels of oil per day. By pumping 

from 10,000 feet, it was not a commercial well due to the low price of 

oil and having to produce it from that depth. The well was eventually 

sold to the company’s pumper in that area. 

In 2007 Hughes became interested in the Eagle Ford play and 

found that the old well had made 17,000 barrels and was still 

producing. It looked like an ideal place to begin purchasing leases. 

Dan A. Hughes Company purchased about 15,000 acres around the 

well and began competing with EOG who was also in the area. A deal 

was made with EOG to jointly merge with Hughes’ acreage and, 

together, they formed a 30,000-acre drilling unit. The Hughes 

Company continued acquiring leases on each end of the play outside 

of that unit and, eventually, had an interest in a gross of 60,000 acres. 

Dan A. Hughes Company drilled the first well on that unit in 2009. 

It operated wells on its original leases and EOG operated wells on its 

original leases. The first well on the joint unit was completed for 400 

bbls of 42 gr. per day. Eighteen wells were drilled and completed in 

which Hughes and EOG each had a one-half interest. The cost was 

expensive, averaging about $7 million per well. 

Unfortunately Dan’s head petroleum engineer had used some 

substandard casing and collars on several wells which burst when 

fraced. With the loss of these wells, the company was forced to put 

its acreage up for sale. Plains Exploration and Production Company 

made an offer to buy all of the company’s Eagle Ford holdings, 

eventually the figure of $585 million was agreed upon for the wells 

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Dan Allen, Jr., and Dan Sr., after a successful duck hunt at Jim Flores’s camp on Little 

Pecan Island in Louisiana, 2012. Flores is the CEO of Plains Exploration. 

and the leases. The president of Plains Exploration was Jim Flores, a 

member of the All-American Wildcatters, which gave Dan and his 

son a personal relationship in dealing directly with him on the sale. 

All of Hughes’ partners involved in the Eagle Ford were, again, 

happy. Later development proved the leases were some of the best 

in the Eagle Ford trend. 

151


Part of the proceeds of the sale was on new leases that had been 

purchased and were less than a year old. In order to avoid paying the 

35 percent tax, Hughes’ portion of the short term sale money was put 

into the IRS 1031 Form which allows a person to trade properties 

without paying a tax. With these funds, he was able to purchase tax-free 

a 7,000-acre ranch in Frio County west of the town of Pearsall, a 6,000- 

acre ranch in Brooks County, and a 2,200-acre portion of the Farish 

Ranch in Bee County, and two or three smaller tracts. Five horizontal 

Eagle Ford wells have now been drilled on this Frio County ranch. 

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COLOMBIA 

Meanwhile, Hupecol continued drilling on new concessions in 

Colombia. In 2011, two of the concessions had production of 

approximately 3,000 barrels a day. It was decided to put these properties 

up for sale as they were not as lucrative as the company’s original Cara 

Cara project. The properties were again listed with Scotia for sale and 

advertised around the world. Eventually the properties were sold to 

Sinopec, a Chinese company for $281 million. 

The sale proved not to be as smart for the Hughes group as the 

Chinese company began drilling horizontal wells on the block and 

increased the production to 20,000 barrels of oil per day. Hupecol 

continued drilling in Colombia and it began developing the La Cuerva 

Prospect which was a new concession. After a year of development, the 

concession was sold in 2012 for $85 million. That was a low profit 

venture and Hughes was delighted to be able to sell it to Geopark, a 

company with production in Peru. 

HUPECOL (Hughes Petroleum), Jaguar #T 5 development well, oilfield, Llano 

Basin, 2005. 

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INVESTORS 

Since the loss of the original investment group from the 1960s, Dan 

A. Hughes Company has developed a new team of investors. Walter 

Umphrey, who purchased and developed a ranch near Quemado in 

the late 1980s, became its first across-the-board investor. He also 

introduced Dan to John Eddie Williams and Cary Patterson. They are 

all wealthy trial lawyers and have opposite political views from Dan and 

his son, but the group has a cordial relationship. The three were all 

part of the team of lawyers representing the State of Texas vs. the 

tobacco companies which netted Texas 15 billion dollars plus their 

additional fee of 15 percent. They are great business partners and a 

deep source of capital. The investors are all in the Colombia 

operations and the horizontal developments in the U.S. They have 

also participated in the large sales of these properties. 

Dan with Sheila and Walter Umphrey, Weil Lease, Jim Hogg County, Texas, 1993. 

154


MOVING FORWARD AND 

GIVING BACK 

With that influx of cash, Dan began making some charitable 

contributions. One such contribution was to Texas A&M University 

for the restoration of the Military Walk through the center of 

the old campus. With a gift of $4 million, this walk was 

reconstructed and has turned out to be the centerpiece of Texas 

A&M University. Also, Dan, Dudley, and Dan Allen made a $1- 

million donation to the Department of Geology to form a school 

which would coordinate geophysics, geology, and petroleum 

engineering. The combined courses are all necessary for present 

day exploration and horizontal drilling in the oil business. The 

school is named The Berg-Hughes Center. It has turned out to be 

a popular school and is being supported by major companies and 

oil-related companies. 

Most of the conventional oil fields of the world have been 

found and world oil production began to decline during the 

beginning of the twenty-first century. The demand for oil is 

continually increasing due to the rapid escalation of living 

standards and use of automobiles in third world countries such 

as China and India. The only large conventional oil reserves 

unexplored at this time appear to be in the deep waters offshore 

at ocean depths of 1,000 feet to 10,000 feet. The new horizontal 

drilling and fracing technologies have opened up millions of 

acres of oil and gas producing shales in the U.S. and around 

the world. These new techniques have made it possible to 

make excellent producing wells from formations that before 

could not be produced. The onshore production in the U.S. 

has increased by 40% in the last five years by using these methods. 

The Berg-Hughes center is designed to prepare students to enter 

into this new concept of petroleum exploration. At present, these 

courses can be part of a geology, geophysical, or petroleum 

engineering degree. 

155


The grand Reopening of Military walk, Dan A. Hughes addressing audience. 

Dan & Brenda Hughes greeting Clayton Williams, A&M Alumnus, longtime Aggie supporter 

and former gubernatorial candidate at Dedication of Military Walk. 

156


Dan, with family members, contributed $1 million to the 

Christus Spohn Hospital in Corpus Christi for the installation of its 

Hybrid Suite and the biplane imaging system. He also gave this 

hospital a modern hyperbaric chamber to update its older models 

at a cost of $250,000. 

The dedication of Berg-Hughes Center: (l-r) Dan A. Hughes ’51, Dudley J. Hughes ’51, 

Diane Barron, Director of Development, College of Geosciences, Dan Allen Hughes, Jr. ’80. 

157


The Military Walk at Texas A&M University in 1923. 

The Military Walk at Texas A&M University, after the 2009 restoration and dedication. 

158


In 2010, Dan Allen Hughes, Jr. led a key group of individuals in raising more than $10 

million in private donations toward the purchase of 17,000 acres along the Devils River in 

Val Verde County. The donations also helped cover initial operating expenses as well as development 

of a master plan for joint public use of the property and the 20,000-acre Del 

Norte Unit of the Devils River State Natural Area about 13 miles upstream. This acreage 

was renamed the Dan A. Hughes Unit in 2015 and has 10 miles of frontage on the Devils 

River and Amistad Reservoir with spectacular views from mesas and canyons, and a variety 

of wildlife habitats. 

159


RANCHES 

Dan continues to purchase ranches which produce a small income 

but are primarily acquired as a hedge against inflation and with 

possible future oil and gas production in mind. Land has been added 

to the Quemado Ranch so now it totals approximately 17,000 acres. 

A 3D seismic survey was made over the area which provided many 

possible drilling locations. The first well drilled there was a discovery 

that produced 80 barrels of oil per day at a depth of 1,900-feet. Some 

dry holes have been drilled, but he anticipates many future wells. 

In 2011, he purchased the Canadian River Ranch in the panhandle 

of Texas which was 71,059 acres and The Trail Creek Ranch in 

Montana which was approximately 4720 acres. Land was acquired 

adjoining the Trail Creek Ranch in 2013 containing 2711 acres. 

Another 640 acres was added in 2014. That ranch now totals 8,071 

acres, which is in a beautiful mountain location. The ranch has an 

abundance of wild game, including a large elk herd and trout fishing. 

A hunting lodge complex was restored and enlarged on the property 

The Boner Ranch was purchased in Wyoming in 2012 and consists 

of 40,200 acres, 33,900 of which were deeded. The Crossed Arrows 

Ranch was purchased in Wyoming in 2013 being 16,100 acres, 14,900 

of which are deeded, and located about 60 miles south of the Boner 

Ranch. Both ranches have good mineral possibilities. 

The 2013 Land Report 

Magazine listed the Hughes 

Family as being the 20th 

largest land owner in the 

United States with 390,000 

acres. In the history of the 

world, land has always been 

the basis of all wealth. Dan 

hopes that his family’s land 

holdings will prove it. He 

Hughes-Ashbrook A2, producing 80 bopd, 

spudded on August 31, 2011. 

plans adding land as funds and 

good purchases are available. 

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Dan and Rick Perry, Governor of Texas at Apache Ranch, 2010. 

(Left to right) Dan Allen Hughes, Jr., Peggy Hughes, Stuart Sasser, Keleigh Sasser, Dan, 

Christina Sasser and Michael Sasser at Trail Creek Ranch in Montana, October, 2015. 

161


162


PRESENT EXPLORATION 

As of 2015, the Dan A. Hughes Company, L.P. with Dan’s support 

and Dan Allen, as president, remains active with many new wildcat 

exploration projects. The company has been changed from a general 

partnership to a limited partnership on its attorney’s suggestions. 

Also, Dan’s daughter, Keleigh Sasser, who has a degree in business 

and geology, is beginning to take an active role in the oil company. 

In the United States, DAHC has explored several large projects, most 

of which are horizontal drilling ventures. The most developed of these 

is in South Texas, and are horizontal wells producing from the Buda 

limestone formation which is located below the Eagle Ford Shale. The 

better wells have initial production of about 500 barrels of oil per day 

and do not require fracing. The company’s present production in the 

trend is approximately 2,500 barrels per day. 

Not all ventures end with a payday. Another horizontal play that 

the company participated in was a Navarro gas-condensate reservoir 

in Webb County in which DAHC had acquired 45,000 acres. This 

prospect was tested with two horizontal wells but proved to be noncommercial. 

A project in northern Louisiana and Mississippi was explored for 

oil production from the Lower Smackover, Brown-Dense 

formation. DAHC leased approximately 50,000 acres on that idea. 

A horizontal well was drilled into the Brown-Dense, topped at 7,000 

feet, but proved to be non-commercial. Other operators have made 

some commercial wells in this trend and hopefully future wells will 

prove up some of the scattered tracts of Hughes leases. 

In South Florida the company leased approximately 100,000 acres 

with an option to acquire another 100,000. A well was drilled vertically 

to 13,800 feet where excellent oil zones were cored in several 

limestones. The well was then plugged back and drilled horizontally 

to 16,250 feet. The well tested 70 barrels of oil per day after a small 

acid frac but was non-commercial at this depth. Environmentalists 

have made it very difficult to operate in Florida and have caused the 

company to get involved in environmental lawsuits. 

163


DAHC also has several conventional prospects under lease. One 

of the larger and most promising of these is the Smackover Lime 

trend in Alabama. In 2008, Dan joined his brother Dudley in 

drilling four Smackover wells in southwest Alabama. These were 

located in an area thirty miles northwest of the prolific Little Cedar 

Creek and Brookland Smackover fields which are being developed 

and are proving to be the largest oil fields in Alabama. Two of 

Dudley’s wells were completed as marginal oil wells in the 

Smackover formation. At this time, Dudley had some severe 

medical problems and was unable to continue the project. The 

Beeville office took over the operation and began an extensive 

reevaluation of the area. After a detailed study of the tectonics, 

seismic, and well data in the area, Dan concluded that the prospect 

was much larger than originally envisioned. He purchased most of 

the interest from the original investors in the 7,000-acre lease block 

who were planning to abandon the project. Another 6,000 acres 

was leased over the anticipated extension of the area. 

Left: DAHCo Kelly-Johnson 

1-11 -#1 Well in Monroe 

County, Alabama 

164


A horizontal well has recently been drilled to a depth of 15,252 

feet east of the initial Hughes vertical wells. This well tested 300 

barrels of oil per day plus 300 barrels of saltwater. Mechanical 

problems were encountered in drilling the well and the horizontal 

leg ended up much lower structurally than planned. A vertical well 

recently completed one mile east of the horizontal test is flowing 

160 barrels of 48 degree gravity oil per day from the Smackover. 

Dan’s interpretation of the leases indicates that there are many 

favorable locations to be drilled. 

DAHC, in partnership with Red McCombs from San Antonio, 

purchased Mediterranean Resources, an Italian oil company having 

approximately 3,000 barrels of oil per day in Sicily, and gas 

production on the mainland of Italy. The company has four 

concessions in Sicily and seven on the Italian Peninsula. The sale 

price was $95 million with an agreement to spend an additional 

$60 million on developing the production. A new limited liability 

company was formed, designated Hupecol Italia, to operate the 

company. The Hughes group has 48 percent, McCombs has 32 

percent, and GSO, the loan company, has 20 percent in the 

venture. The operation is returning its investment as anticipated, 

and many Hughes employees have volunteered to go to Rome. 

In Colombia, Hupecol presently has several concessions, two of 

which are in the Llanos Basin. Seismic has been completed and 

defined some large, favorable geologic structures. Drilling on one 

of those concessions has been delayed due to guerilla activity in the 

area. The Colombian government has been extending the time 

limit of this permit until it is considered safe to drill. 

Another of the concessions, Llanos 58, containing 48,000 acres, 

has been drilled, resulting in a significant discovery. Nine wells have 

been drilled and completed in the Mirador sand at an approximate 

depth of 5,300 feet. These wells together are producing 4,100 

barrels of oil per day. The ideal situation in exploring these areas 

is to develop enough cash flow on a concession to finance the 

drilling and testing of all of the prospects without having to put up 

additional capital. This development seems to have reached that 

stage, and more wells are planned. There are several other 

165


favorable seismic structures on Llanos 58 to be drilled. 

Hupecol’s past exploration in Colombia has been in the Llanos 

Basin, but two concessions have been acquired in the Magdalena 

Valley area for which the 3-D seismic has been completed. The 

geophysics have developed three structures that have a high 

potential for shallow oil production. 

As of this date, Hupecol has drilled 157 wells in Columbia. 

In other foreign operations, the company has completed a 

seismic program in Belize and several favorable seismic structures 

were located. There are numerous oil seeps in the area. The first 

test well has been drilled to a depth of 10,354 feet, had oil shows, 

but was a dry hole. 

DAHC has recently purchased the production from Exxon on 

the Santa Fe Ranch, in Texas, which is owned by the East family and 

is part of the original old King Ranch oil & gas lease. This 

acquisition contains approximately 88,000 acres and has 

production from three gas condensate fields. Geological and 

engineering reports indicate a large undeveloped potential for the 

project. The purchase price was approximately $39 million. 

DAHC has completed a 3-D seismic survey on the Damon 

Mound salt dome in Brazoria County, Texas. This old oil field was 

discovered in 1915 and produced 23.6 million barrels of oil from 

shallow Miocene and Frio sands. Seismic surveys of these old 

producing structures usually find untested areas. Dan’s old friend 

from his time at Union Producing, Bill Darsey, brought this 

prospect to the company. 

In deep South Texas, DAHC has deals pending with the Jones 

ranches on approximately 60,000 acres to rework existing 3-D 

seismic with options to lease and drill any prospects that are 

developed. 

166


Dan with family and friends fishing in the Gulf of Mexico on the Wildcatter, 2012. 

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS 

At the age of 86, Dan A. Hughes reflects on his life and career and 

realizes that he has enjoyed the tough years, as well as the good. 

Although appearing to work hard, long hours, it was satisfying more 

than anything else he could have done. He has had many paydays. His 

social life has been gratifying, and he has made many friends around 

the world. Now, he enjoys life—hunting, fishing, taking trips and 

cruises, and relaxing with family and friends on various ranches. 

He views his greatest accomplishment as raising three 

outstanding children with his first wife (deceased). The three grew 

to adulthood without any major problems and they are poised to 

take over the oil, ranches, and investment business and expand 

those interests to unknown heights. He is also proud of his nine 

grandchildren (three from each family) who are all outstanding 

boys and girls, following in their parents’, grandfather’s, and great 

grandfather’s footsteps. 

167


For him, it is a great life. He says he may have lived through the 

most interesting period in history of mankind. He was born at the 

beginning of The Great Depression when farms were still worked with 

horses, and automobiles were in their early development. After that, 

came super highways, television, the atomic bomb, jet airplanes, and 

trips to the moon, satellites, space stations, computers, the Internet, 

and cell phones. Who knows what else is on the horizon? 

Also during this period, the country has experienced World War II, 

the Korean War in which he and many of his classmates served, 

Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. 

History has recorded that nations of the past ruled by democracies 

have reached the peak of their civilization in approximately 200 years 

and then declined. The United States may have reached its peak 

during this period. Only history will tell in the future. 

Dan receiving the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2011 from Texas A & M University. 

168


DAN A. HUGHES AWARDS 

1978 Awarded membership in exclusive All 

American Wildcatters 

1978 Citizen of the Year – Bee County 

Chamber of Commerce 

1997 Halbouty Geosciences Medal – 

Texas A&M University 

2011 Distinguished Alumni Award – 


2011 Brenda & Dan Hughes – 

Citizens of the Year Award 

Bee County Chamber of Commerce 

2011 Outstanding Explorer Award – 

American Association of Petroleum Geologists 

2012 Sterling C. Evans Medal – 


2013 Outstanding Independent Award– 

Society of Independent Professional 

Earth Scientists, Houston Chapter 

169


THE HUGHES FAMILY 

HISTORY 

This Hughes family history was researched and presented to the 

family by Dale Critz from Savannah, Georgia. Dale is president of an 

organization specializing in the history of the state of Georgia. Dale 

was on a shooting trip in England with Dan and Dudley Hughes when 

he associated their names with those of past citizens of the area around 

Danville, Georgia. This was approximately in the year 2000 and was 

the first time the family had detailed knowledge of this past history. 

Date Unknown: The Hughes family originally came from Wales. 

(Congressman Dudley Mays Hughes had visited relatives in Wales 

and had several family antiquities from Wales in his Magnolia 

Plantation home. 

Hayden Hughes, 1811± -1880± 

(great-great grandfather of Dan Allen and Dudley Hughes) 

Sept. 30, 1835: 

Feb. 4, 1836: 

Postmaster of Higgsville, Twiggs County, Georgia. 

Hayden Hughes, Cormt. Twiggs County Cavalry, 

attached to the 137th Regiment, Seminole Indian 

War. Twiggs County Cavalry joined other 

companies to form a horse battalion for service 

in Florida during the Seminole uprising. 

Following the war, the Seminoles were moved to 

a reservation in Oklahoma. 

May 17, 1880 Will of Hayden Hughes dated May 17, 1880, 

Fulton County, Georgia. Changed in Bibb 

County, May 18, 1880. Probated in Twiggs 

County. 

Grants: 

Heirs: Son Daniel Greenwood Hughes, daughterin-law 

Mary H. Hughes, grandchildren Dudley M. 

Hughes, Carrie H. Hill, Fannie H. Dennard, and 

Lucy Hughes (land and money); 

Mercer University, Macon: $5,000 to be used for 

170


geological and mineralogical cabinet. (This gift 

was unknown until this history was acquired. 

Dudley and Dan must have inherited his aptitude 

for geology.) 

In trust to Jackson Hughes, Jordan Hughes, and 

Eloise Hughes—minor children of Georgia Ann 

Hughes (black), the house where I now live in 

Atlanta, Georgia, and $24,000. (After the death 

of Hayden Hughes’ first wife, he moved to his 

plantation and had this family.) 

Daniel Greenwood Hughes, dates unknown 

(great grandfather of Dan Allen and Dudley Hughes) 

There is no will on record for Daniel Greenwood Hughes. He was 

apparently married prior to 1847 based on the 1846 Census (wife 

unknown). He had one son, John Wesley Hughes (Dan’s 

grandfather), born about 1845. His wife died according to accounts 

of John Wesley’s heirs. 

1847: University of Georgia, class 1847 

1847: Married Mary Henrietta Cary Moore (second 

wife), August 30, 1847. Four children: Dudley 

Mays Hughes, born 1848; Carrie Hughes, Fannie 

Hughes, and Lucy C. Hughes (half-brother and 

sisters to Dan’s grandfather) 

1892: City of Danville, Georgia, named for Daniel G. 

Hughes in 1892. 

Dudley Mays Hughes, 1848-1927 (Dan’s 

grandfather’s famous half-brother): Educated in 

Oakland Academy and the University of Georgia. 

Abandoned education to manage his father’s 

plantation in 1868. On November 27, 1873, Dudley 

married Mary Frances Dennard. Three children: 

Daniel Greenwood Hughes (Jr.), Hugh Lawson 

Dennard Hughes, and Henrietta Louise Hughes. 

Dudley created a large farming complex, known 

as the Magnolia Plantation, served as president 

of the Georgia State Agricultural Society, 

171


1904-1906; was an original incorporator of the 

Macon-Dublin-Savannah Railroad in 1885 and 

served as its president until 1891. 

In politics, he was a Georgia state senator, 1882- 

1883, but is mostly known for his service in the 

U.S. House of Representatives, 1909-1917. He 

then ran his plantation until his death in 1927. 

His eldest son, Daniel G. Hughes, Jr., entered 

politics but died in 1916. His son Hugh L.D. 

Hughes then became an important merchant 

in Danville, Georgia, and became a state senator 

in 1925. 

Henrietta Louise Hughes was never married and 

lived in the old family home until her death at an 

age near 100. She furnished almost all of the 

information concerning her famous brother, 

Dudley, to reporters and historians, included in 

the History of Twiggs County, Georgia, published in 

1960. She wrote, “Mr. Hughes, only son of Daniel 

Greenwood Hughes and Henrietta Clay Moore 

was born in Jeffersonville on Oct. 10, 1848.” It is 

believed she purposefully deleted all references 

to John Wesley from the records furnished. 

John Wesley Hughes, 1845± - 1914) 

(grandfather of Dan and Dudley Hughes) 

John Wesley Hughes was raised with his half-brother, Dudley Mays 

Hughes, and Dudley’s sisters. However, he was not treated as an equal 

to Mary’s children. When he became of age, he left home in the 

1860s and made it on his own. 

No record has been found to establish his activities from the time he 

left home in the 1860s until the early 1900s. The Oklahoma oil 

booms began about the turn of the century. Oklahoma was Indian 

Territory when oil was found in large quantities beginning just before 

1900. All of the land had been held by some 60 Indian tribes, many 

of which had been forcibly removed there from other states. In 1889, 

some land was open to non-Indians, and initiated the Oklahoma 

land rush. The first rail line was built to Bartlesville in 1899 to begin 

172


to haul oil. Oklahoma became a state in 1907. 

Cordelia Merriott was the mother to June Dean Ivie, born November 

18, 1898, in Versailles, Missouri; father Elijah Lee Ivie. The census of 

1900 taken at Tulsa indicates the family to be in Creek Nation, Indian 

Territory, Oklahoma. Elijah Lee Ivie died around 1903. 

John Wesley apparently went to Oklahoma to work in the oil fields. 

He married the widow Cordelia Jane Merriott Ivie around 1905 

(Dan’s grandmother). (Cordelia had a twin sister, Cordelia June 

Merriott.) Twin sons were born January 20, 1907, in what was then 

Indian Territory, believed to be near what is now Tulsa. He named 

one son Dan Greenwood Hughes, after his father, and the other 

Dudley Mays Hughes, after his half-brother. June Dean Ivie, then 9 

years old, was their half-sister. 

During World War I, John Wesley Hughes moved his family to 

Orange, Texas, where he obtained work in the shipyards building 

ships. A daughter, Vivian Hughes, was born to him and Cordelia in 

Orange, Texas, in 1912. 

An accident in the shipyard occurred around 1914 which rendered 

a severe blow to John Wesley’s head, leaving him incoherent. He was 

moved to an asylum in Austin, texas, where he died around 1914. 

Having no government assistance available in those days, his widow, 

Cordelia, moved her family to Dallas, Texas. There she supported 

the family by taking in laundry and her twin sons began selling 

papers at age 7. She had never met her husband’s Georgia relatives 

and made no attempt to contact them. John Wesley had been absent 

some 40 years or more. Few living family members even knew he had 

existed other than Daniel Greenwood Hughes, Sr.’s three other 

children. 

Dan Greenwood Hughes, 1907-1985 

(Dan’s father) 

Married Winnie B. Williams (1907-1993) in 1928. Children: Dan 

Allen and Dudley Joe Hughes, 1929 (twins); and Beverly June and 

Barbara Jane Hughes, 1934 (twins). 

The middle name for Dan (Allen) was selected from his father’s boss 

at United Gas Company, and Dudley’s middle name (Joe) was from 

173


his mother’s employer. 

Dan Allen Hughes, 1929- 

Married Juanita Joe Wentz (1934-199) in 1956. Children: Dan Allen 

Hughes, Jr., 1957; Keleigh Dianne Hughes, 1959; and William Hilton 

Hughes, 1962. 

174


THE FAMILY HISTORY OF 

WINNIE BELL WILLIAMS 

(Mother of Dan Allen Hughes) 

Major John Williams, ?-1794 

(Dan’s great-great-great grandfather on his mother’s side) 

Married Mary Atwood-Laurens in Edgefield, South Carolina. Had a 

son, James Atwood Williams. Col. James Williams, 1740-1780. Killed 

in the battle of King Mountain, North Carolina (War of 

Independence with England). Married Mary Wallace. Had 

daughter Mary Williams (1769-1828). 

James Atwood Williams, 1767-1816 

(Dan’s great-great grandfather) 

Married cousin Mary Williams (1769-1828). Had son Elisha Duke 

Hughes Williams from Kentucky. (Source of Hughes name 

unknown.) 

Elisha Duke Hughes Williams, 1809-? 

(Dan’s great grandfather) 

Married Sarah J. Chambers (1817-?) from Georgia. Had son James 

Chambers Williams, plus 8 other sons and daughters. 

James Chambers Williams, 1852-1925 

(Dan’s grandfather) 

He or his father apparently established a plantation near 

Keithville, Louisiana, of about 15,000 acres. During the Civil War, it 

was reported that the family heard the gunfire from the Battle of 

Mansfield approximately 20 miles to the south. Married first wife 

(name unknown). Had 8 children. First wife died. Married second 

wife Luella A. Minch, a German orphan (Dan’s grandmother). 

Children: Oscar B. Williams, Vardeman Williams, Winnie B. 

Williams (Dan’s mother), and Myrtis Williams. 

175


Winnie B. Williams, 1907-1993 

(Dan’s mother) 

Married Dan Greenwood Hughes, 1907-1985 (Dan’s father) in 

1928. Children: Dan Allen Hughes, 1929; Dudley Joe Hughes, 

1929-2015; Beverly June Hughes, 1934; and Barbara Jane Hughes, 

1934. 

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Payday: The Dan Hughes Story

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